September 10, 2013
As I speculated yesterday, putting Syrian chemical weapons under International control has taken off as a potential “negotiated” solution which could avoid a US strike.
The speed with which the suggestion of international control has been taken on by so many of the parties including Syria (but excluding Al Qaida and the various opposition groups) is – I think – encouraging. But the message from the Obama administration is now incredibly mixed. Instead of giving the impression of an iron fist in a velvet glove the prevailing impression is of Obama having gone too far and now scrambling to avoid implementing a strike.
Even the Senate majority leader felt it necessary to delay any vote in the Senate. Members of Congress were also highly irritated by Kerry’s statement yesterday that the strike would be “unbelievably small”. This must have stung their egos — since of course nothing the Congress votes for can be for anything “unbelievably small”!
Support for President Obama’s call for military airstrikes in Syria is sliding on Capitol HIll.
President Obama’s push for congressional approval for military airstrikes in Syria ran aground Monday, forcing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to delay a procedural vote as opposition builds among senators in both parties.
Six senators, including five Republicans and one Democrat, announced Monday they would vote against a resolution authorizing the use of force — a strong indication that the administration’s efforts to build bipartisan support have been ineffective.
The Senate was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a procedural motion to begin formal debate on the resolution, but Reid announced late Monday the vote would be delayed in order to buy the president more time to make his case to senators and the public.
“What we need to do is make sure the president has the opportunity to speak to all 100 senators and all 300 million American people before we do this,” Reid said.
The delay also came amid reports that Russia was seeking a deal with Syria to dismantle its chemical weapons program. Obama said in television interviews Monday such a deal could circumvent the need for U.S. military intervention, but senators had not been briefed on the development and expressed skepticism.
“I have no idea what’s going on. It’d be great if the Russians could convince Assad to turn over his chemical weapons to the international community. That’d be a terrific outcome. I just am very dubious and skeptical,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Comments made Monday in London by Secretary of State John Kerry describing the military effort as “unbelievably small” also rankled lawmakers. Graham said Kerry “undercut everything the president has been doing for the last couple of days” to build support.
That there was strong opposition to Obama’s war in the House was known but this has now spread to the Senate.
The rapid clip of senators announcing their opposition on Monday raised serious doubts that the president would be able to muster the necessary support in either the House or Senate. The GOP-led House is not likely to take up a resolution unless the Senate can pass it first. A final Senate vote was expected this weekend, but Reid’s decision to delay the formal debate puts the schedule in flux.
Five GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Mike Enzi of Wyoming all announced opposition Monday, as did Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
Briefings by top administration officials and a weekend conversation with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel were not enough to sway Alexander. “I see too much risk that the strike will do more harm than good by setting off a chain of consequences that could involve American fighting men and women in another long-term Middle East conflict,” he said.
If a US strike does not take place the losers will be Obama (for being so strident so quickly) and Al Qaida.
Tags: Barack Obama, chemical weapons, Harry Reid, international control, John Kerry, Syria
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Syria, US | Comments Off on Obama hits pause button and Senate delays Syria vote
September 10, 2013
David Attenborough is reported in the Guardian as being rather pessimistic about the future of humans.
People should be persuaded against having large families, says the broadcaster and naturalist
Much of what he is reported to have said is perfectly sound but many of the conclusions then present a pessimistic and apocryphal – a very Guardianesque – view. In fact I suspect that the spin is entirely due to the Guardian’s reporter and the Guardian’s remarkable ability to see a looming catastrophe in every advance.
That with falling fertility rates, world population will continue to rise at a decreasing rate and stabilise by 2100 is just a matter of arithmetic. But a 100 years from now we will face the challenges of a slowly declining population. That natural selection is “defeated” when even weak individuals are cared for and are not allowed to die is not something to regret. We are in the process of artificial selection over-riding natural selection and at a quite different pace, but it is just another challenge for humans – not something to wring our hands over. In fact we are already practicing a sort of eugenics by default.
Sir David Attenborough has said that he is not optimistic about the future and that people should be persuaded against having large families.
The broadcaster and naturalist, who earlier this year described humans as “a plague on Earth”, also said he believed humans have stopped evolving physically and genetically because of birth control and abortion, but that cultural evolution is proceeding “with extraordinary swiftness”.
“We stopped natural selection as soon as we started being able to rear 90-95% of our babies that are born. We are the only species to have put a halt to natural selection, of its own free will, as it were,” he tells this week’s Radio Times.
“Stopping natural selection is not as important, or depressing, as it might sound – because our evolution is now cultural … We can inherit a knowledge of computers or television, electronics, aeroplanes and so on.”
Attenborough said he was not optimistic about the future and “things are going to get worse”.
“I don’t think we are going to become extinct. We’re very clever and extremely resourceful – and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I’m sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
“We may reduce in numbers; that would actually be a help, though the chances of it happening within the next century is very small. I should think it’s impossible, in fact.” …
… he also appeared to express qualified support for the one-child policy in China.
He said: “It’s the degree to which it has been enforced which is terrible, and there’s no question it’s produced all kinds of personal tragedies. There’s no question about that. On the other hand, the Chinese themselves recognise that had they not done so there would be several million more mouths in the world today than there are now.”
He added: “If you were able to persuade people that it is irresponsible to have large families in this day and age, and if material wealth and material conditions are such that people value their materialistic life and don’t suffer as a consequence, then that’s all to the good. But I’m not particularly optimistic about the future. I think we’re lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse.”
“Worse” is a matter of judgement.
We will feed and house more people than ever before. We will take care of more of the elderly than ever before. We will each have more and affordable energy available to us than ever before. We will educate and empower more people than ever before. More of us will see more of this world than ever before. We will face more challenges than ever before. That’s not “worse”.
Tags: Artificial selection, David Attenborough, Eugenics, fertility rates, Human, Natural selection, one-child policy, Population growth, The Guardian
Posted in Alarmism, Anthropology, Demographics, Evolution, Humans | 1 Comment »
September 9, 2013
UPDATE!
Looks like my speculations this morning may not be so far off the mark:
Washington Post:
========================================================================
It might just be wishful thinking on my part or it could be that Obama and Kerry are preparing a face-saving path to abandoning their strike on Syria rather than suffer a humiliating rejection in the the US House of Representatives.
For the first time that I have noticed, Kerry is now “offering” Assad a way to avoid a strike – by giving up all his chemical weapons. I could be mistaken but I perceive the beginnings of a change in Kerry’s strident tone. The rhetoric for a strike from Kerry and Obama is not letting up – but it’s the first time that a possibility of a strike not happening has been mentioned. Of course if Congress and the Senate back Obama then there will be no need to back down and the exit path will become unnecessary. I also noted some US voices suggesting that Obama could postpone any vote in Congress until after some – so far – undefined moves in the UN as being advocated by the EU and other countries (including Russia). Putin for his part has also indicated that if the UN were shown the evidence and concurred then he would also support some – as yet unspecified – UN action against Syria.
Of course Assad would not/could not just give up his chemical weapons and certainly not to the US. But it is not unthinkable that he may be willing to put them under the control of his Russian allies. So if a suitable “formula” is evolved where the Russians perhaps “take charge” of Assad’s chemical weapons or in some other way secure their “safe-keeping” then Kerry and Obama could claim that their objective of preventing any further such attacks has been achieved. And if in addition the Russians are acting – or seen to be acting – on behalf of the UN in arranging such a scenario it would not only give Assad a way of saving face but also give the US the possibility to claim that Assad has conceded the supremacy of the UN. More importantly if such a scenario were being arranged it would give Obama and Kerry a “reason” for waiting with the vote in the House and for waiting with the strike.
If , in spite of the “red line having been crossed”, a US strike can be avoided by Assad ceding control of his chemical weapons then it seems to me to be something within the realm of negotiation. Especially when the benefits to the US of a very limited strike are not very evident. The benefits of such a strike may mainly accrue to Al Qaida.
The key remains the US Congress. All “face saving” only becomes necessary and only comes into play if Obama expects to lose a vote in the House even after (and if) he has won a vote in the Senate. The next few days will tell if Obama’s rhetoric is holding sway in the House or whether he will need to use his exit strategy.
Tags: Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, chemical weapons, exit policy, Russia, Syria, United States, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Russia, Syria, US | 1 Comment »
September 9, 2013
I just heard an interview with disgraced former UK Minister and philanderer, Chris Huhne on the BBC.
Apparently The Guardian likes his position of attacking the Murdoch Press for his arrest but he did stop short of blaming them for his transgressions. He is going to have a weekly column in The Guardian – which seems to be an alliance of mutual discredit.
I am probably hoping in vain that he will not be writing about energy or the environment – both areas where his ignorance, incompetence and transgressions dwarf his marital infidelities.
But on second thoughts perhaps this is not such a bad thing. He should be pretty good at damaging his espoused causes.
Tags: Chris Huhne, Guardian, Perverting the course of justice
Posted in Behaviour, Media | 2 Comments »
September 9, 2013
I don’t really know a great deal about bees. I have been stung by bees twice in my life. I was not threatening them in any way and both paid the price of their insolence and died. Every year we have ” a lot” of bees in our garden where ” a lot” is my subjective assessment of the number of times I have to swat them away or have to move while dozing in the sun. I have not noticed any great difference – this summer – in the number of bees that I have “interacted” with. I am well aware that they play a very important (but not indispensable) role in pollination and I do like honey even if I have to watch my sugar intake.
In the last year or so I have been bombarded with articles greatly alarmed about the catastrophic decline of honey bees and strident calls – especially in the over-bureaucratic EU – for the banning of various pesticides (neonicotinoids) which are decimating the bee population. A new “syndrome” has been invented – Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The UK has not gone along with the ban so far.
“The two-year European Union ban on neonicotinoids was justified as a way to tackle CCD. It is perhaps worth pointing out that France banned the neonicotinoids in the 1990s, and it has seen no marked reduction in CCD.”
But it could all be just another case of what may well be a perfectly “natural” variation being blown up by alarmist environmentalists. I am coming to the view that every time an “environmentalist” invents a new catastrophe it is just to inflate the importance of his own advocacy.
Bjorn Lomborg writes:
There is no bee crisis
Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no “bee-pocalypse.” There is lots of alarmist talk about colony collapse disorder, people are blaming pesticides and talking about hundreds of billions of dollars at risk. But a closer look tells a very different story.
Yes, honeybees are dying in above-average numbers, but the most likely cause is the varroa mite and associated viruses.
Moreover, if you look at the actual numbers, they undermine much of the catastrophic rhetoric. In the United States, where we have good data, beekeepers have adapted to CCD. Colony numbers were higher in 2010 than any year since 1999. The beekeepers are not passive victims.
Instead, they have actively rebuilt their colonies in response to increased mortality from CCD. Although average winter mortality rates have increased from around 15 per cent before 2006 to more than 30 per cent, beekeepers have been able to adapt to these changes at fairly low cost and to maintain colony numbers.
Honeybee deaths are also nothing new. The Breakthrough Institute reports that, in 1853, Lorenzo Langstroth, the 19th-century bee-keeper who invented the modern hive, described colonies that were “found, on being examined one morning, to be utterly deserted. The comb was empty, and the only symptom of life was the poor queen herself.” In 1891 and 1896, large clusters of bees vanished in a case known as May Disease.
In the 1960s, bees vanished mysteriously in Texas, Louisiana and California. In 1975, a similar epidemic cropped up in Australia, Mexico and 27 U.S. states. There were heavy losses in France from 1998 to 2000 and also in California in 2005, just two years before CCD was first diagnosed. ….
…… Many have pointed toward pesticides as the main reason of colony collapse disorder. The two-year European Union ban on neonicotinoids was justified as a way to tackle CCD. It is perhaps worth pointing out that France banned the neonicotinoids in the 1990s, and it has seen no marked reduction in CCD.
Recent science articles instead point clearly to mites and viruses: “Varroa mites and viruses are the currently the high-profile suspects in collapsing bee colonies.”
Overall, the CCD is a problem we need to tackle, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination as bad as it is made out. ….
CCD – it seems – may be an over-exaggerated and alarmist figment of an over-fertile “green” imagination.
Tags: Alarmism, Bees, Colony Collapse Disorder, neonicotinoids, population variation, Varroa destructor
Posted in Alarmism, Biology, Wildlife | Comments Off on Is the “bee crisis” yet another alarmist fiction?
September 8, 2013
Oh dear.
I have the same sense of disappointment as when I read that yet another top athlete has been found to have been using drugs. I suppose we are all looking for the stories of individuals who exemplify the ever stretching limits of human endurance and achievement. I was thrilled and I had only admiration a few days ago when the publicity machine exploded on 64 year old Diana Nyad having completed a 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida. It made me feel good to be human. But it may all have been too good to be true.
Yet another “feel-good” bubble may be bursting.
Could the glare of the spotlight be so alluring and so lucrative as to lead to such an elaborate hoax?
CBS News:
Diana Nyad’s 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida has generated positive publicity and adoration for the 64-year-old endurance athlete — along with skepticism from some members of the small community of marathon swimmers who are questioning whether she accomplished the feat honestly.
… long-distance swimmers have been debating whether Nyad got a boost from the boat that was accompanying her — either by getting in it or holding onto it — during a particularly speedy stretch of her swim. They also question whether she violated the traditions of her sport — many follow strict guidelines known as the English Channel rules — by using a specialized mask and wetsuit to protect herself from jellyfish. ……
It was her fifth try, an endeavor apparently free from the boat troubles, bad weather, illnesses and jellyfish encounters that have bedeviled Nyad and other swimmers in recent years.
Nyad’s progress was tracked online via GPS by her team, and some critics say they think information is missing.
Many wonder about a roughly seven-hour stretch when Nyad apparently didn’t stop to eat or drink, recalling her 2012 attempt when she got onto the boat for hours during rough weather. Nyad eventually got back into the water to try finishing, but her team was criticized for delaying the release of that information to the public.
Malinak said the hours-long spike in Nyad’s speed after 27 hours of swimming is particularly questionable — she went from her normal pace of roughly 1.5 mph to more than 3 mph, then slowed down again as she approached Key West.
Tags: Cuba, Diana Nyad, English channel Rules, Florida, Swimming, Swimming hoax
Posted in Behaviour, Fraud, Sport | Comments Off on Was Diana Nyad’s Cuba to Florida swim a hoax?
September 8, 2013
An acceptable form of killing since it was not by gas. No red lines crossed here.
The Guardian:
Afghan officials have said an apparent Nato air strike has killed 15 people – nine of them civilians, including women and children – in an eastern province where the Taliban remain strong. Nato said 10 militants had died in the strike, and that it had no reports of any civilian deaths.
Civilian deaths in Nato operations have long been a sore point between the Afghan government and the US-led troops in the country, and they have been a major factor in the animosity many Afghans feel towards foreign forces. Conflicting accounts of who or how many died also are common, especially when remote, dangerous regions are involved and access by independent observers is restricted. …
… The Kunar province police chief Abdul Habib Sayed Khaili said the air strike had hit a pickup truck carrying the women and children in Qoro village soon after three Arab and three Afghan militants boarded it on Saturday evening. He said some reports had called it a drone strike, but that Afghan officials had been unable to confirm that. Of the 15 dead, four were women, four were children and one was the driver, the police official said.
The Watapur district chief Zalmai Yousefi confirmed the air strike. He also said 15 people had been killed, including women and children.
The Nato spokeswoman 1st Lieutenant AnnMarie Annicelli confirmed that the military alliance had carried out a “precision strike” that killed 10 “enemy forces”, but that it had received no reports of any civilians dying in the air strike. Annicelli had no immediate details on who exactly the dead were or what prompted the strike.
Tags: Afghanistan, children killed, civilian casualties, NATO
Posted in Afghanistan, Behaviour, Politics | Comments Off on Nine civilians including children killed by NATO – but it’s OK, it wasn’t by gas
September 8, 2013
Norway goes to the polls tomorrow and Erna Solberg could be the next Prime Minister with a centre-right government replacing the centre-left government of Jens Stoltenberg.
Stoltenberg came into his own after the massacre at Utøya 2 years ago. His low key but enormously effective speeches captured the sombre mood of the country and yet held everybody together. He was even referred to as the “father of the nation”. Paradoxically, even after such a traumatic event perpetrated by a right-wing maniac (Breivik), this election will see the country shift rightwards.
Erna Solberg (photo tv2.no)
Tags: Anders Behring Breivik, Erna Solberg, Jens Stoltenberg, Norway, Utøya
Posted in Behaviour, Norway, Politics | Comments Off on The next Prime Minister of Norway?
September 8, 2013
It is a misty Autumn morning this Sunday and the last week has had its mix of stories. But a few small encouraging events are over-shadowed by the darkness of Obama’s determination to go to war. Abe won for Tokyo while Rudd lost for Abbott and Kerry lobbies the world for money and support for Obama’s war.
Shinzo Abe made a personal commitment to the IOC that the Fukushima radiation leaks were and would be under control. Tokyo was awarded the 2020 summer Olympic Games yesterday in Buenos Aires beating Istanbul by 60 votes to 36. Madrid had crept up to be perceived as a front runner with their low key, “low cost” games but the mood was not for “restraint”. Delegates were getting tired of financial crises. Moreover they were tired of doping scandals and these could not be ruled out in Madrid or Istanbul. And once Madrid lost to Istanbul in a run-off for second place, the Madrid support – especially from Europe and the Americas – was not ready to let the Games go to an Islamist country for the first time ever. Of Madrid’s initial 26 votes in the first round, only 10 went to Istanbul in the final voting. And that left Tokyo which is a good thing
In Australia, the bookies and the national polls turned out to be pretty well right. Kevin Rudd lost and Tony Abbott won as a consequence. But the Labour loss could have been much worse. A clear majority in the Lower House for the Coalition but not in the Senate where they only secured the avoidance of a Red/Green majority. The Carbon Tax is toast but it will take a bit of horse trading in the Senate to finally bury it. The peculiar nature of preference votes means that the Senate composition will not be firm for a few days and there will be some new Senators which could lead to some unusual alliances. The Greens will actually have an extra Senator but thier alliance with Labour may not be as clear-cut. The overbearing self-righteousness of Australian bureaucracy may begin to be curbed. Tony Abbott has already asked his bureaucrats to prepare to stop the Carbon Tax and to stop the asylum boats. The Carbon Tax may well go in 2014 and that is a good thing.
And in the meantime President Obama pursues his war with no objectives. He flew back to the US to shore up domestic support for his war on Syria. He is scheduled to make his weekly address on Tuesday and to have six interviews with leading news anchors broadcast on Monday. Remarkably it is the hawks and neo-cons in the US who are the strongest supporters of his war.. A “coalition of mutual contempt” according to the Atlantic. John Kerry is travelling around Europe lobbying the European countries. His list of countries supporting the US is “now into double figures”. Even self-appointed policemen have to be paid and Kerry is also meeting with the Arab League in Paris today and its members have offered to pay for the entire cost of Obama’s war! A strike on Syria by the US seems inevitable and that is a bad thing.
Tags: 2020 Olymics, Australia, Barrack Obama, John Kerry, Kevin Rudd, Obama's war, Olympic Games, Shinzō Abe, Tokyo, Tony Abbott, United States
Posted in Behaviour, Politics | Comments Off on Abe wins and Rudd loses while Kerry lobbies for Obama’s war
September 7, 2013
Forty odd years ago it was ping-pong diplomacy which was used to break the stalemate of the the China -US section of the cold war. (And where would Forrest Gump have been without it?)
The era of Ping-Pong diplomacy had begun .. (in 1971) …. when the American team—in Nagoya, Japan, for the World Table Tennis Championship—got a surprise invitation from their Chinese colleagues to visit the People’s Republic. Time magazine called it “The ping heard round the world.” And with good reason: no group of Americans had been invited to China since the Communist takeover in 1949.
It could be an electronic “ping” from Iran to Israel in the 21st century.
Now it is Iranian tweets. Israel is “perplexed and pleased” at the messages from the new Iranian President and his Foreign Minister sending Rosh Hashanah wishes to Jews around the world.
Hassan Rouhani. Photo: REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi
Jerusalem Post:
Israelis reacted with a mixture of pleasant surprise and wary skepticism on Friday to reports that the new Iranian president and his foreign minister had both issued greetings to mark the Jewish New Year.
Relations between the two countries have been dire for years, with Israel threatening to attack the Islamic Republic over fears it is planning to build nuclear weapons that could one day jeopardize the survival of the Jewish state.
Haaretz:
After sending out Rosh Hashanah wishes to Jews around the world, Iran’s foreign minister tweets that Iran doesn’t deny the Holocaust in response to a tweet by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter.
Reuters:
In a change of tone, his successor Hassan Rouhani and the new foreign minister, Javad Zarif, appeared to issue tweets in English wishing Jews a good Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish new year that is being celebrated this week. Iran has long declared an official respect for the Jewish faith while condemning Israel.
“Happy Rosh Hashanah,” tweeted Zarif on a profile that notes his career as a diplomat, academic and “Uni of Denver alum”.
The reported greetings came just as Israel was settling into a long holiday weekend and there was no official reaction.
But of course Iran has always held that it is Israel and not Jews that Iran is opposed to. Reuters continues:
Confusing matters, Israeli news websites quoted an official in the Iranian president’s office denying any New Year greetings had been sent and saying Rouhani’s English-language Twitter account, used during his election campaign, was not active.
There was no denial from Zarif and the minister went further to push back on a comment that Iran denies the Nazi Holocaust: “Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone,” he tweeted, apparently meaning Ahmadinejad.
On Facebook, he wrote: “We condemn the massacre of Jews by the Nazis and we condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Zionists.”
Iran is home to the second largest Jewish community in the Middle East – albeit only a few thousand people following mass emigration last century. It denies Israel’s right to exist but even Ahmadinejad embraced some Jews – as long as they rejected the Zionist movement that established the Israeli state.
Neither Rouhani or Zarif mentioned the word “Israel”.
Perhaps it is the right time – with Syria in the background – for an Israeli “pong” to Iran’s “ping”.
Tags: hassan Rouhani, Holocaust, Iran, Israel, Javad zarif, Jews, ping pong diplomacy, Rosh Hashanah, Twitter
Posted in Behaviour, Iran, Israel, Politics | Comments Off on Could twitter diplomacy be today as ping-pong was then.. ?
The k2p blog 