BBC NEWS | Europe | Swiss approve prescription heroin

Swiss voters have backed a change in health policy that would provide prescription heroin to addicts.

Final results from the national referendum showed 68% of voters supported the plan.

The scheme, where addicts inject the drug under medical supervision at a clinic, began in Zurich 14 years ago before spreading across the country.

But in another referendum, the Swiss appear to have rejected the decriminalisation of cannabis.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

BBC NEWS | Europe | Romanians vote in national poll

Early indications from the Romanian general election put the leftist Social Democratic party in the lead.

Exit polls predict that the opposition Social Democrats have won 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year.

The global economic downturn appears to have eroded support for the governing Liberal party.

The Social Democrats, the successors to the communists, campaigned on promises to increase welfare payments.

There have been no official results so far.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

CLIMATE CHANGE: EU Saying, Not Doing, the Right Things

BRUSSELS, Nov 25 (IPS) - Senior European Union figures are portraying themselves as champions of sound ecological policies ahead of the international climate change negotiations that begin in Poznan, Poland Dec. 1. Stavros Dimas, Europe's environment commissioner, this week described a series of measures being considered by the bloc's 27 governments as "easily the most far-reaching legislative package on fighting climate change anywhere in the world."

Green activists who have assessed the small print of these measures are less impressed, and believe that the EU's rhetoric is not being supported by solid action.

One of the main reasons why the Union cannot genuinely claim to be displaying leadership, they say, is that it has so far been unwilling to undertake drastic cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas triggering climate change, within its own borders.

In 2007, the EU's governments committed themselves to a minimum 20 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

Yet the latest version of proposals on their table suggest that about 65 percent of those cuts would not actually take place at home. Rather they would be 'offset' by financing 'clean development' in other parts of the world.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

Madrid aurait été informé des vols secrets de la CIA dès 2002

Le quotidien espagnol El Pais, qui s'est procuré un document officiel classé "très secret", affirme que le gouvernement espagnol alors mené par le conservateur José Maria Aznar était au courant dès 2002 des vols secrets américains transportant des prisonniers talibans de l'Afghanistan vers la base de Guantanamo. Le document, daté du 10 janvier 2002 soit quatre mois après les attaques du 11-Septembre, a été rédigé par Miguel Aguirre de Carcer, directeur général des affaires étrangères pour l'Amérique du Nord, après un entretien effectué avec un "conseiller politico-militaire de l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Madrid", selon El Pais.

Aznar's government was aware of dubiously legal transfers of prisoners since early 2002, says El Pais.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

BBC NEWS | Europe | Romania election outcome unclear

Romania's ex-communist Social Democrats appear to have taken the lead in the general election but the shape of the next government is far from clear.

Exit polls predict that the Social Democrats will get about 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year.

The global economic downturn seems to have hurt the governing National Liberals which are forecast to win 20%.

Its former allies, the Liberal Democrats, are said to have won 31%.

This was the last regular national parliamentary election in an EU country before the European Parliament elections in June 2009, or so a scan of the wikipedia electoral calendar tells me. There's the (indirect) German predident elections, but those look to be fixed for Köhler. Is there anything else coming up in Europe?

P.S. I'm pre-emptively outsourcing any diary requests ;-) -- as my familiarity with Romanian politics is next to zero. Somebody up to it?

Georgia and Ukraine split NATO members - International Herald Tribune

NATO foreign ministers gather this week in Brussels, with the United States and Germany quarreling over just how much distance to keep from Georgia and Ukraine.

The debate is ostensibly over the mechanisms through which Georgia and Ukraine will, at some point, become members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But the real debate is over relations with Russia, especially in the aftermath of its conflict last summer with Georgia. And those ties with Moscow are wrapped up in domestic politics, both in Germany and the United States.

The administration of President George W. Bush, which has maintained close ties with Georgia and with pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, wants to give no concessions to what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia. It wants NATO to send a clear message that Moscow cannot intimidate the alliance and that it does not get to veto NATO membership.

At her last NATO ministerial meeting, the main task for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be to give substance to a vague promise by NATO last April that Georgia and Ukraine would some day become members.

George Bush is going to get his last foreign policy failure. Should be fun, especially as there are only upsides to this latest epic fail. The IHT reporting still sucks, but they've gone from hyping up membership without reporting differences to reporting differences inaccurately (saying that Germany supports a MAP which it doesn't, its policy is indefinite postponement of even offering a MAP) in a deeply biased tone.

Georgian President Urges Europe To Be Tough With Russia | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 30.11.2008

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili warned the European Union on Sunday not to make too many concessions to Russia in upcoming negotiations on a partnership agreement.

"Russia's smaller neighbours would view a decision by larger European countries to accept Russian aggression as treachery," he told the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel in an interview released in advance of publication Monday.

 

The president was speaking ahead of Tuesday's resumption of talks on a new EU partnership deal with Russia that were suspended after Russian troops marched into Georgia in August.

Merkel Seeks to Unite CDU on Financial Crisis | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 30.11.2008

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) begin a party conference amid deep divisions over how Germany should come to grips with the worst financial upheaval in decades.

Merkel has called for a measured response to the crisis, saying the economic stimulus package enacted by her government, a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), should be given time to kick in before further action is taken.

 

This is not enough for many in the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who want tax cuts to be introduced before the nation goes to the polls in a general election that's likely to take place on Sept. 27, 2009.

  

Merkel is opposed to lowering taxes before the polls, pointing out that Berlin's prime goal is to reduce borrowing and balance the budget. Originally, the government had hoped to balance the budget by 2011, but that date was abandoned after Germany fell into recession and the government was forced to increase net borrowing for 2009 by eight billion euros to 18 billion euros ($10.3 billion to $23.1 billion).

But Angie, tax cuts are the only solution... What was the problem again?

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Javno.com: 2-Metre Waves Flood Adriatic Cities (December    01, 2008)

Strong South wind and high sea level caused the Adriatic Sea coastline to be flooded. Venice is alarmed, streets are flooded.

Two-metre waves have flooded the centre of Rijeka and the area near the city market, Rijeka web site reports on Monday. Sea level is significantly higher than usual. Karolina Rijecka pier was also flooded.

...

The Venice Tide Centre has declared an emergency on Monday due to the "aqua alta" phenomenon, because the sea is supposed to reach the level of 1.6 metres above normal, which is a record in the past 30 years, Hina Croatian news agency reports.

...

The heaviest "aqua alta" dates back to November 1966, when Venice was flooded under 194 cm of water, while the entire Italian territory was struck by catastrophical floods.

I am told this might be the first time in 100 years that the Croatian coast gets flooded like this by high seas.


Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

Asian Funds Give Stocks Second Look - WSJ.com

HONG KONG -- Fund managers in Asia started to creep back into stock markets in November, encouraged by the recent sharp drop in prices.

For much of this year, fund managers have held higher-than-usual cash positions amid volatile market conditions. The high cash positions have also been in preparation for redemption requests from panicky investors. Managers who waded into securities have generally preferred bonds over equities, but that appears to be changing.

For the first time since May this year, managers indicated they were tiptoeing into stocks. Managers said they were "slightly overweight" on equities, according to Dow Jones's monthly poll of portfolio managers active in Asia. Weightings reflect managers' portfolio composition compared to benchmark indexes.

"The appetite for risk is increasing. Cash should increasingly be invested in equities," said New Star's Gregor Logan, adding that "the discount in earnings is likely to be less substantial than currently priced in."

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

EU still considering French government's bank bailout plan: spokesman - MarketWatch

BRUSSELS (MarketWatch) -- The European Commission hasn't blocked France's bank bail-out plan and negotiations on the matter are continuing, a commission spokesman said Sunday. "We are not blocking (the plan), we just haven't agreed to it yet. There is a difference," said spokesman Jonathan Todd, who specializes in competition matters. Todd was responding to a report in the Financial Times that said the commission is blocking a French plan to bail out the country's six main retail banks, as it holds the view that banks shouldn't be allowed to use state support to increase their lending.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

Bloomberg.com: Europe

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The yen gained for a fourth straight month against the euro, the longest wining streak since 1999, as the deepening global economic slump prompted investors to sell high-yielding assets and pay back loans made in Japan.

The euro weakened against the dollar for a fifth month as investors added to bets the European Central Bank will cut interest rates next week after inflation in the region slowed by the most since at least 1991. Russia's ruble declined against the dollar to the weakest level since March 2006 as the central bank let the currency depreciate and raised interest rates to halt an exodus of foreign capital.

"The yen is still our favorite currency," said Derek Halpenny, head of global currency research at Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi Ltd. in London in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "The interest-rate differential argument is still very, very powerful for the Japanese yen as yields around the world continue to plunge. Past performance tells you that the Japanese yen is going to be the currency that outperforms."

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

BBC NEWS | Business | Russia hikes rates to help rouble

Russia's central bank increased its key interest rate to 12% from 11% in an attempt to reduce an outflow of money and curb the decline in the rouble.

The move is also aimed at containing inflationary pressures.

On Monday the head of the central bank refused to rule out the possibility that the national currency, the rouble, could weaken.

However, Sergei Ignatiev stressed that both the bank and the government wanted to avoid a devaluation.

Russia has been spending billions of dollars to support the rouble.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

Chinese exploit western job losses

Out-of-work finance professionals in the UK and US have a new reason for optimism about their employment prospects - especially if they speak Mandarin.

Chinese financial institutions are set to exploit the widespread job losses in western financial centres as a result of the credit crunch by next month embarking on a hunt for financial experts willing to relocate.

The Shanghai Financial Service Office has told state media the city is sending a delegation to New York, Chicago and London to recruit specialists in risk management, asset management, product research and development, macro economics and policy analysis.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Concerns mount on ability to fund state debt

Fears are rising over the ability of governments to raise the vast amounts of debt they need to pay for economic stimulus packages and bank bail-outs.

Faced with the prospect of governments around the world issuing more than €2,000bn ($2,535bn) of bonds in the next year, bankers are warning of potential problems in meeting funding needs.

(...)

The rush of bond issues comes against a background of record low yields in some countries because of recession and fears of deflation. Last week, 10-year bonds in both the US and the UK fell to 50-year lows.

However, faced with contracting economies, lower tax receipts, and rising benefit payments, countries could face higher debt-servicing costs as overall debt levels rise.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Date     1 mo     3 mo     6 mo     1 yr     2 yr     3 yr     5 yr     7 yr     10 yr     20 yr     30 yr
11/03/08     0.20     0.49     1.07     1.31     1.45     1.69     2.71     3.21     3.96     4.73     4.33
11/04/08     0.29     0.48     1.03     1.28     1.39     1.59     2.56     3.06     3.81     4.58     4.20
11/05/08     0.16     0.40     0.90     1.22     1.36     1.64     2.50     2.99     3.73     4.49     4.13
11/06/08     0.13     0.32     0.83     1.17     1.28     1.63     2.46     3.01     3.75     4.52     4.19
11/07/08     0.13     0.31     0.83     1.20     1.33     1.71     2.56     3.11     3.83     4.57     4.25
11/10/08     0.11     0.29     0.91     1.16     1.27     1.78     2.51     3.06     3.82     4.50     4.21
11/12/08     0.10     0.18     0.75     1.03     1.19     1.60     2.37     3.00     3.75     4.44     4.17
11/13/08     0.08     0.22     0.93     1.16     1.24     1.62     2.43     3.07     3.84     4.57     4.34
11/14/08     0.06     0.15     0.90     1.14     1.22     1.53     2.33     2.94     3.72     4.43     4.22
11/17/08     0.06     0.12     0.81     1.08     1.22     1.53     2.32     2.92     3.68     4.42     4.20
11/18/08     0.10     0.12     0.76     1.05     1.15     1.44     2.22     2.79     3.53     4.32     4.14
11/19/08     0.09     0.07     0.66     0.97     1.09     1.36     2.08     2.64     3.38     4.17     3.96
11/20/08     0.05     0.03     0.52     0.87     1.00     1.20     1.94     2.43     3.10     3.87     3.64
11/21/08     0.03     0.02     0.45     0.83     1.09     1.35     2.02     2.53     3.20     3.93     3.70
11/24/08     0.01     0.13     0.54     0.95     1.31     1.53     2.24     2.71     3.35     4.01     3.78
11/25/08     0.04     0.10     0.53     0.95     1.15     1.41     2.06     2.49     3.11     3.85     3.63
11/26/08     0.02     0.05     0.48     0.93     1.09     1.38     2.01     2.43     2.99     3.77     3.54
11/28/08     0.02     0.01     0.44     0.90     1.00     1.27     1.93     2.35     2.93     3.71     3.45

Time for Junior to give us another "Mars, Bitches!" speech.  Deflation's fun, fun, fun!

YEEHAWWW!!

[Drew's WHEEEEE™ Technology]

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Deep Discounts Draw Shoppers, but Not Profits - NYTimes.com

Sales in the nation's stores were strong over the weekend, to the relief of retailers that had been expecting a holiday shopping period as slow as the overall economy.

But while spending was up, there were troubling signs in the early numbers. The bargains that drove shoppers to stores were so stunning, analysts said that retailers -- already suffering from double-digit sales declines the last two months -- would probably see their profits erode even further.

Also, after shoppers flooded stores on Friday, foot traffic trailed off significantly on Saturday and Sunday.

Retailing professionals consider the weekend after Thanksgiving a barometer of overall holiday sales, which account for 25 to 40 percent of their annual sales. And in a year marked by an economic crisis, they are desperate for any signs that consumers are still willing to spend.

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

FT.com / Companies / Financials - RBS promises mortgage respite

The political and public campaign to force Britain's banks to do more to help customers weather the economic downturn will gain impetus on Monday with a promise from Royal Bank of Scotland to give at least six months' breathing space to homeowners who fall behind with mortgage payments.

The promise, which will put pressure on other banks to make similar commitments, comes as ministers prepare to outline plans that could see voluntary codes of practice for the banking industry placed on a statutory footing.<

The promise by RBS, which also owns NatWest, comes days after the government took ownership of a 58 per cent stake in the bank after shareholders shunned the offer to buy new shares as part of the bank's £20bn ($30.7bn) capital injection.

The bank's pledge not to begin repossession proceedings until customers were six months or more in arrears is double the minimum recommended by industry guidelines

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

Deputy CM RR Patil talks himself into trouble- Politics/Nation-News-The Economic Times

MUMBAI: A seemingly endless series of terror attacks across the country has finally claimed the job of Union home minister Shivraj Patil. Another home minister with the same surname could also be in the line of fire.

Maharashtra's deputy chief minister RR Patil, who holds the home portfolio, has not been up to the mark, feel top police officials, state home department bureaucrats and even ministers belonging to the Congress and the NCP.

"With such a home minister at the helm of affairs, we could not ask for a greater disaster. Mr Patil spoke and behaved as if he was featuring in a pulp Bollywood movie, during the 60-hour-long terror attack and its aftermath, with irresponsible sound-bytes serving as dialogues," an exasperated senior Congress minister told ET. This minister cited `information' fed by Mr Patil to the byte-hungry news channels.

"The terrorists had ammunition and planned to kill 5,000 people. But the brave police security forces crushed their designs and reduced the damage to a much lesser degree," Mr Patil said at a press conference on Friday. Mr Patil's statements, about the ability of terrorists to kill 5,000 people, have not been confirmed by the NSG which finally freed the city landmarks from the terrorists.

Asked whether the magnitude of the attack and large-scale smuggling of ammunition pointed to massive intelligence failure at the state-level, pat came the reply: "You draw your own inference".

"Mr Patil is also believed to have made light of the terror attack by saying that such minor incidents do happen in big cities. This is highly unbecoming of a home minister when the entire country is facing a serious crisis," the Congress minister said. The minister pointed out that Shivraj Patil had to lose his job as much for his penchant for mouthing loaded but meaningless sound-bytes as for lacking an understanding of his job requirements.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

AFP: Nigerian army takes over riot city

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) -- The Nigerian army took over the stricken city of Jos on Sunday to enforce calm after two days of Muslim-Christian clashes that left hundreds dead.

"The situation this morning is gradually returning to normal. There has not been any cases this morning of any destruction or violence," Brigadier Emeka Onwamaegbu told AFP.

Residents reported troops patrolling the streets and calm returning to the city. Offering the first official toll, Plateau State's information minister Nuhu Gagara said about 200 people died during fighting on Friday and Saturday between the rival communities over the results of a local election in the Plateau State capital.

Other sources have given a toll twice the official figure.

"This figure is just preliminary, as a search and rescue committee has been inaugurated by the government to go around the city and recover dead bodies," Gagara told reporters. He did not give a figure for the injured.

Police arrested 500 people on Saturday alone, carrying "all sorts of lethal weapons," Gargara said.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

China's rural migrants are new front in AIDS fight | International | Reuters

BEIJING, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The new face of AIDS in China is a shy man with a heavy provincial accent, a weathered face and the rough hands of a manual worker.

Zhang Xiaohu, a character in an educational film for migrant workers, is part of a trend that worries Chinese officials: the potential for AIDS to spread among the estimated 200 million rural migrants driving the country's rapid economic expansion.

AIDS in China has, to date, mostly been limited to drug users, gay men, prostitutes and the victims of reckless blood-buying schemes in the 1990s.

By the end of 2007, China had about 700,000 people with HIV/AIDS -- 0.05 percent of the total population -- health officials said on Sunday, ahead of World Aids Day the next day.

"The epidemic is lowly prevalent in general but it is highly prevalent among specific groups such as migrant workers, and in some regions particularly remote areas and the countryside," said Wang Weizhen, deputy director of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment at the Ministry of Health, according to state media.

Higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases and other risk factors among male migrants have spurred an intensified effort to reach them before HIV spreads faster among them, and into the broader population.

"Other at-risk groups are rather small, but this one is huge," said Sun Xinhua, head of an office to combat AIDS that reports directly to the State Council, China's cabinet.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

NYT - Thai Protesters and Police Meet

BANGKOK -- Protesters occupying Bangkok's two airports and the prime minister's office pleaded for police protection Sunday after an explosion injured about 50 demonstrators, four of them seriously.

Chamlong Srimuang, a former army general who is one of the protest leaders, met with the chief of police in Bangkok to request that police officers join protesters in patrolling the besieged prime minister's office, where the explosion took place.

The meeting came amid growing fears of violence between protesters and government supporters, who held a demonstration Sunday in the heart of Bangkok.

But the meeting between Mr. Chamlong and the police also underlined the demonstrators' apparent impunity in carrying out their illegal sit-ins that have caused chaos among travelers across the region.

Suchart Muenkaew, the Bangkok police chief, said the 20-minute meeting with Mr. Chamlong helped "loosen the tension and mistrust between us." Thai news Web sites carried photos of Mr. Chamlong sitting at a table with smiling senior officers.

In October, Mr. Chamlong and eight other leaders were arrested for the raid and occupation of the prime minister's office but were released on bail. A police request to cancel their bail was rejected by the attorney general's chambers on Friday, reinforcing the widely held notion in Thailand that the protesters have powerful backers among the Thai elite who are preventing a crackdown on the demonstrators.

Journalists caught in crackdown by Myanmar junta

YANGON, Myanmar - Two journalists have been jailed for seven years each on charges of undermining Myanmar's military junta after they were caught with a U.N. human rights report.

A court in a northeastern suburb of Yangon on Friday sentenced Thet Zin, editor of the local Myanmar-language journal News Watch, and Sein Win Maung, the paper's manager, under the country's draconian Printing and Publishing Law.

The convictions are part of a renewed crackdown by the regime in the past month that has led to more than 100 people including activists, writers, musicians and Buddhist monks receiving jail sentences of as long as 68 years. Many have been transferred to prisons in remote regions.

The journalists' jailing came on the same day a court inside Yangon's Insein prison sentenced the remaining 13 members of the 88 Generation Students, a group at the forefront of a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, to six years for undermining stability, family members said.

The 13 activists are among 46 from the group handed long prison sentences for their roles in leading nonviolent protests, including the pro-democracy demonstrations in September 2007 led by Buddhist monks that were violently suppressed.

Myanmar's military, which has held power since 1962, tolerates no dissent. It frequently arrests artists and entertainers regarded as opposing the regime.

AP - Tank-laden Ukranian ship could be freed soon

MOSCOW - Pirates have agreed on a ransom for releasing a Ukrainian freighter laden with battle tanks and it could be released soon, a spokesman said Sunday.

Mikhail Voitenko said the MV Faina could be freed this week along with its cargo and crew if agreement is reached on how to get the ransom money to the pirates, who seized the ship off the coast of Somalia coast in late September. He said negotiations on the issue were held Friday.

"The owner has confirmed there is every reason to hope that it will be released this week," said Voitenko, editor of Maritime Bulletin-Sovfrakht, a shipping news Web site.

He said he is acting as spokesman for the Faina's owner, Vadim Alperin. A man who answered the phone at Ukraine-based Tomex Team, the ship's technical manager, confirmed that Voitenko was the owner's spokesman. The man refused to give his name.

Pirate attacks off Somalia have surged more than 75 percent this year, and the seizure of the Faina raised particular concern because of its cargo of 33 battle tanks and other weapons and ammunition. Its Russian captain died days after the hijacking, and the ship and its 20-member crew are still being held off Somalia.

Russia sent a missile destroyer to the region after the hijacking to protect other cargo vessels, and the Faina has been watched by U.S. and other warships to prevent the removal of its cargo, which authorities fear could get into the hands of Somali factions or be sold.

AP - Ethiopia to withdraw from Somalia by end of year

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Ethiopia announced Friday that is pulling its forces from Somalia by year's end, leaving the ravaged capital vulnerable to the Islamic militants who have seized nearly all of the country.

The decision ends the unpopular two-year presence of the key U.S. ally much as it began -- with the militants in near-total control of a failed state with a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Ethiopia has sent thousands of troops here since early 2007, when it launched a U.S.-backed operation that drove the militants from Mogadishu after six months in power.

Since then, the Islamists have waged a ferocious insurgency, attacking U.N.-supported Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies nearly every day.

The United States worries that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, particularly since Osama bin Laden declared his support for the Islamists. It accuses a faction known as al-Shabab -- "The Youth" -- of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Ethiopian forces have remained almost entirely in the capital, along with a small African Union force that has just 2,600 of the intended 8,000 troops and has largely been confined to urban bases.

The militants, meanwhile, have taken control of towns within miles of the capital and move freely inside Mogadishu.

Mission Accomplished?

Opinion: India Is Pointing in the Right Direction - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

By Claus Christian Malzahn

Mumbai a terror zone, and India bitterly points its finger at Pakistan. The unloved neighbor needs all the help the West can offer. Pakistan is nearly a failed state -- and a US invasion under President Obama can't be ruled out.

It is still not clear who exactly carried out the terror attacks in Mumbai this week. But the actions speak for themselves. The murderers expressly went after Britons, Americans and Jews. In the world's largest democracy, attacks were carried out by a determined minority against the will of an overwhelming majority. The crimes bear the clear and bloody fingerprints of militant, political Islamism.

The uncomfortable resonance left behind by the series of attacks is that the criminals were almost omnipotent: They could strike where, when and -- almost -- whomever they wanted. The terror didn't just claim its victims in one awful moment; it spread out and lasted for days. There was a similar feeling during the terror attacks on the living quarters of Westerners in Saudi Arabia in 2004 as well as the battle at Pakistan's Red Mosque, in the center of Islamabad. But this time the terror overtook an entire city.

Weekly Standard | Before He Goes

What President Bush could accomplish in his final days in office.
by William Kristol

So it could be eight years on the outside of the White House looking in for the GOP. It certainly looks like at least four years out of power in Congress as well, given the sizable Democratic margins. And the fact that Republicans will be blamed for an economy in free fall, and won't get the credit they deserve for successes in Iraq and the broader war on terror, hardly helps the GOP's prospects for a quick comeback.

Can Bush do anything in his last weeks to change this dynamic? It's hard to see how he can affect the economic narrative at this point.

But he could do his party--and the nation--a service by reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror. He did address the achievements in Iraq and Afghanistan in a fine speech at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, last week, and he can do more along those lines. In particular, he can continue to pay tribute to the successes of the Army and the Marines on the ground, and explain that the task must be finished in both theaters. He can address issues like getting ROTC back on elite campuses (a position Obama also favors). And while he's at it, perhaps he could tell various admirals to stop moaning about how difficult it would be to deal with the pirates off the coast of Somalia (isn't keeping the shipping lanes open a core mission of the Navy?) and order the Navy to clobber them. If need be, the Marines would no doubt be glad to recapitulate their origins and join in by going ashore in Africa to destroy the pirates' safe havens.

We've seen that the WaPo has published some pretty insane op-eds over the past few days. However, there's balance on the good side.

Preemptive Pardons - washingtonpost.com

SOME LAWMAKERS and liberal interest groups have begun calling for criminal investigations of Bush administration personnel who crafted or implemented controversial anti-terrorism policies. As a result, President Bush may be contemplating preemptive pardons, including those involving CIA agents and others who carried out "extraordinary renditions" or "enhanced interrogations." There are compelling reasons for the president not to go down that road.

The Bush administration distorted statutes and case law to legally justify interrogation techniques that had long been considered torture under domestic and international law. It relied on sloppy or aggressive legal analysis as a basis for evading judicial review of a warrantless wiretapping program. It has at every turn chosen the most expansive interpretation of the law to rationalize indefinite detentions and deny federal court review to those in custody. It has, in short, determined its preferred course of action first and then stitched together absurd readings of the law to defend those choices.

NATO's First Line of Defense? It Shouldn't Be Here. - washingtonpost.com

Military alliances are the most serious international commitment societies can make. But politicians in Washington and Brussels have ignored their responsibility to justify the promise of blood and treasure they seem willing to make on their citizens' behalf. There are several things that more sober NATO members can do to decelerate the dash to the east.

First, NATO should demand real progress from Kiev and Tbilisi before instituting the MAP or any other form of enhanced relationship with the alliance. Georgia has used large-scale military force against its own citizens three times in the past 15 years. It has no nationwide independent broadcast media. It has never changed its head of state by holding a boringly ordinary election. Nearly a fifth of its territory is under the control of secessionist regimes. Ukraine is much closer to meeting the basic standards of good governance, but its politicians and society are deeply split over whether NATO membership is even a desirable goal. The most battle-ready military force on its territory are the Russian soldiers, sailors and airmen stationed at Moscow's leased facility in Sevastopol on the Black Sea. No Western politician who argues for quick action on Ukraine and Georgia can be serious about increasing the security of the existing 26 NATO allies.

I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq - washingtonpost.com

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I'm still alarmed about that today.

I'm not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me -- both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn't work.

Details of proposed Liberal-NDP coalition emerge

A Liberal-NDP coalition agreement that would replace the minority Conservative government was being fleshed out Sunday night, the CBC has learned.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has shown the outline of an agreement between his party and the New Democratic Party to Liberal leadership candidates Michael Ignatieff, Dominic LeBlanc and Bob Rae, the CBC's Keith Boag reported, citing sources.

"They're discussing this tonight in Toronto," he said from Ottawa.

The NDP would hold 25 per cent of cabinet positions, Boag said, adding that the finance minister and the deputy prime minister would be Liberals.

DKos diary.

Well, we get called antisemites when we say those things, so I guess that makes him one, too:

'The Time Has Come to Say These Things':

We must make these decisions, and yet we are not prepared to say to ourselves, "Yes, this is what we must do." We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, meaning a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories. Some percentage of these territories would remain in our hands, but we must give the Palestinians the same percentage [of territory elsewhere]--without this, there will be no peace.

Yedioth Ahronoth: Including Jerusalem?

Ehud Olmert: Including Jerusalem
(...)
...Our goal should be, for the first time, to designate a final and exact borderline between us and the Palestinians so that the entire world, the United States, the UN, and Europe can say, "These are the borders of the State of Israel, we recognize them, and we will anchor them with formal resolutions in the major international bodies. These are the recognized borders of Israel and these are the recognized borders of the State of Palestine."
(...)

Interestingly, Olmert says "War in Lebanon" where Steinberg, the editor and translator, calls "War against Hezbollah" -- it wasn't a war against Hezbollah, my lebanese friends weren't members of Hezbollah, nor was Beirut's oil refinery, but they got bombed all the same.

A 'centrist' is someone who's neither on the left, nor on the left.

More Than Health Damaged by Ag Nutrients in Drinking Water

MANHATTAN, Kansas, November 24, 2008 (ENS) - The pollution of fresh water by agricultural nutrients costs government agencies, drinking water facilities and individual Americans at least $4.3 billion a year in total, finds new research from Kansas State University.

Biology professor Walter Dodds, who led the study, says the researchers calculated that $44 million a year is spent just protecting aquatic species from nutrient pollution.

Dodds and the K-State researchers based their conclusions on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data on nitrogen and phosphorous levels in bodies of water throughout the country.

The damaging chemicals - phosphorous and nitrogen - enter the environment from nonpoint sources rather than flowing into a lake or stream from one pipe.

They enter the water from various points, such as runoff from row crop agriculture across the surrounding lands, said Dodd.

The researchers calculated the money lost from that pollution by looking at factors like decreasing lakefront property values, the cost of treating drinking water and the revenue lost when fewer people take part in recreational activities like fishing or boating.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

New rifts form on Antarctic ice shelf - CNN.com

Scientists have identified new rifts on an Antarctic ice shelf that could lead to it breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula, the European Space Agency said.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf, a large sheet of floating ice south of South America, is connected to two Antarctic islands by a strip of ice. That ice "bridge" has lost about 2,000 square kilometers (about 772 square miles) this year, the ESA said.

A satellite image captured November 26 shows new rifts on the ice shelf that make it dangerously close to breaking away from the strip of ice -- and the islands to which it's connected, the ESA said.

Scientists first spotted rifts in the ice shelf in late February, and they noticed further deterioration the following week. The period marks the end of the South Pole summer and is the time when such events are most likely, said Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

JohnyRook posted a diary about this last March and has a new one up on DKos.

Relevant information: summer has just begun in Antarctica, today.

Obnoxious displays of wealth on TV a turn-off for many
By Alana Semuels  LA Times November 29, 2008

Viewers affected by the drama on Wall Street 'don't want to watch rich people whine' -- so networks are cutting back on shows that might offend.

The third season of "Wall Street Warriors" started filming this spring, as the financial sector's meltdown accelerated. The show's camera crews captured the pain and anger of the biggest stock market crash in decades. But right now, the show doesn't have an audience.

"Wall Street Warriors" was shot for Mojo HD, a high-definition cable channel that's shutting down Monday, leaving the reality series without a home. Its producers are shopping the show to other networks, with no takers so far.

Its problem: Americans are too depressed about their own finances to entertain themselves by watching shows about money, according to industry executives and academics.

"People don't want to come home at the end of the day and have more bad news about their money," said Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the film studies department at Wesleyan University. "They don't want to see the Enron scandal, they don't want to see CEOs getting away with it."

Television ratings reflect that trend. ABC announced last week that it wasn't ordering new episodes for "Dirty Sexy Money," a show about a wealthy and unscrupulous New York family. In mid-November, only about 3.6 million viewers tuned in to watch NBC's "Lipstick Jungle," a show about three high-powered New Yorkers, which is almost half the number who tuned in when the show began.

If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Sets Records

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2008) -- The 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season officially comes to a close on November 30, marking the end of a season that produced a record number of consecutive storms to strike the United States and ranks as one of the more active seasons in the 64 years since comprehensive records began.>

A total of 16 named storms formed this season, based on an operational estimate by NOAA's National Hurricane Center. The storms included eight hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA's pre- and mid-season outlooks issued in May and August. The August outlook called for 14 to 18 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. An average season has 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

"This year's hurricane season continues the current active hurricane era and is the tenth season to produce above-normal activity in the past 14 years," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

[...]

Bell attributes this year's above-normal season to conditions that include:

• An ongoing multi-decadal signal. This combination of ocean and atmospheric conditions has spawned increased hurricane activity since 1995.
• Lingering La Niña effects. Although the La Niña that began in the Fall of 2007 ended in June, its influence of light wind shear lingered.
• Warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures. On average, the tropical Atlantic was about 1.0 degree Fahrenheit above normal during the peak of the season

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

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