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The China Daily says that Stephen Hawking has huge influence in the People's Republic.

So his expressed penchant for Chinese women as well as his concern that the warming earth is looking at a future as barren as Venus may receive due attention there.



As to the latter, one must sincerely hope so.

Any sudden great leaps forward, in recent years, along the global road to Venus-like barrenness must be attributed at least in part to concomitant increases in crude oil consumption within China and India, the earth's two most populous countries and two of the boom kids on the economic block of the noughties.

China and India were pretty much given a free pass at Kyoto. The focus there was on the United States. Some said that state of affairs smacked of power politics, as has the recent jump in crude oil prices.

Crude producers like Venezuela and Iran have accentuated anti-Americanness on the political stage and yet, in the western media, a bony finger has been pointed long and hard at American and West European oil companies as the real culprits at back of the petroleum price squeeze.

No matter. The fact remains that crude oil supplies must be finite, though the nearness of finiteness appears often to be exaggerated. The facts also remain that via the bloated coffers of Iranians, Saudis and Venezuelans goes terrorist sponsorhip, and that all in the street know that.

Said street is often a smoggy one, more so in China perhaps, and so all can easily dream of cleaner energy initiatives and applaud as same are unleashed.



Hence a great deal of political capital is there to be made in the ground sowed by Pete du Pont in the WSJ today, being the same ground boldly highlighted by the US President in his last State of the Union address, and the same ground that left-reviled "Japan Inc" has adventurously and successfully staked a green banner upon.

Senator Hillary Clinton, late of New York and early in the Bush succession running, is described by du Pont as favouring "reducing our dependence on foreign oil by at least 50% by 2025", while opposing all realistic means by which said goal can be achieved.

Drilling in Alaska is one of those realistic and politically incorrect means, and du Pont describes a would-be future first gentleman's contribution to that state of affairs thus:

In 1995 Mr. Clinton vetoed a budget bill that would have allowed oil exploration and drilling in part of the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. Prudhoe Bay fields, just to the west of ANWR, have delivered 15 billion barrels of oil through the Alaska pipeline to the U.S. market without damage to Alaskan land, caribou or other wildlife. ANWR contains 10 billion barrels of oil, so Mr. Clinton's veto today is costing America about a million barrels of oil each day. Yet Congress has repeatedly defeated efforts to open ANWR to exploration.

As the Heritage Foundation points out, the U.S. "is the only nation in the world that has placed a significant amount of its potential domestic energy supplies off-limits."

Mrs and Mr Clinton also, of course, oppose the building of politically incorrect nuclear power plants, the last of the 104 such plants in the US having been built 3 decades ago. Du Pont says these 104 plants:

"decrease by 700 million tons the CO2 released into our atmosphere each year"

and that, due to an initiative of President Bush perhaps to be vetoed by (a) future President(s) Clinton, 25 new nuclear plants are under consideration.

In a similar vein, Mrs Clinton opposes the drilling of bountiful natural gas supplies accessible to the United States, and favours increase in the federally subsidized supply of ethanol, even though huge amounts of crude oil - enough to defeat the purpose of producing it - are required to move the ethanol from soy bean to gas tank.

Following the blessed retirement to virginal thrall by the Pele of head-lopping, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the battle for succession began in earnest today with two brilliantly executed goals, both be-headers, by up and coming Iraqi ambusher Abu Hamza al- Muhajer against a US Services team.

Just as Brazil successfully warmed up for the football World Cup with a friendly match against New Zealand, Muhajer said in a press release that his team’s practice of the “nahr” technique - that used for the slaughter of sheep by cutting the throat - had paid off with two perfectly ugly executions under match conditions.



An Iraqi military official confirmed that the dismembered remains of two barely identifiable American captives, killed “in a barbaric way”, had been found in the dirt at the Islamist Stadium.

Islamist web sites could barely contain their joy about the result.　Said the Mujahedeen Shura Council:

"We give the good news ... to the Islamic nation that we have carried Allah’s verdict by slaughtering the two captured crusaders."

"With Allah Almighty's blessing, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer carried out the verdict of the Islamic Council" (for the soldiers’ slaying).

It is not yet clear whether Allah communicated his/her blessing by telephone or email.

Despite the confidence of Islamistball administrators that their game, “the ugly game”, is preferred by Allah to football, “the beautiful game”, the latter’s world cup seems to be attracting more media attention.

Several recent Islamist PR initiatives, such as neo-Nazi demonstrations in Germany in support of Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Ahmadinejad’s promise to appear at the football world cup when his Iranian team carried the Islamist flag into the competition’s second stage, have failed to galvanize public interest as hoped.

Also, interest in the United States continues to be luke-warm.

Even the recent Allah-sanctioned be-headings barely rated a front page mention in the New York Times, whereas American state-sanctioned toilet paper confiscations such as those at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere hogged the headlines for months.


Related:

President of Iran: Hallucinations of a psychopath　
(Bahman Aghai Diba PhD International Law - Persian Journal)

Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune scribbler Clarence Page very often gets and writes it right, as in today's offering:

Our feelings about race are based on our experiences with it, which complicates matters because each and every one of us has a unique racial experience...

I've often said that my family did not leave the party of Lincoln; the party left us.

Page remembers the point of Republican departure:

... Republicans too often get a bum rap on race, considering the heroic sacrifices many Republicans have made for racial progress. The Chicago Tribune, where I work, was founded in 1847 by Joseph Medill, who opposed slavery, helped found the Republican Party 150 years ago and support the candidacy of Abraham Lincoln, who's still my favorite president.

... (T)he GOP lost black support after the glory days of Dwight Eisenhower. As an African-American child of the Eisenhower 1950s, I have fond memories of another Republican Party ... The words "black Republican" would have raised eyebrows only because the label "black" was not yet in fashion. We were still "colored" in those days.

Just about everybody "liked Ike" in my little Ohio factory town, including the "colored" folks. I recall my childhood's greatest political turning point in 1957, when our little black-and-white TV screen showed Arkansas National Guard troops with bayonets on their rifles keeping black students out of Little Rock's Central High School. The next day, I turned on the news to see those same troops escorting those same black students into the high school, past jeering white mobs.

What happened? "President Eisenhower must have made a phone call," my father explained. After that, I really liked Ike!

We also liked moderate Republicans like Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, ... and Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the first black senator since Reconstruction.

And we really liked Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen, who rallied enough senators from both parties to overcome fierce resistance from Southern Democratic senators like Robert Byrd of Virginia, a former Ku Klux Klansman, and Al Gore Sr., of Tennessee ... Time does heal wounds - and wounds some heels.

But, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater's opposition to that Civil Rights Act turned black voters heavily in favor of Lyndon Johnson in 1964 and simultaneously lost Southern white voters to Johnson's party, as Johnson predicted it would. To black voters, the act of sacrificing political capital is true heroism, especially on behalf of equal rights. Soon, the Republican Party became known as the party of white flight, an image only partly redeemed in recent years by the success of high-profile black Republicans like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

With all that history in mind, I applaud Jack Kemp.... He sees (government) as a vehicle to help individual initiative and free enterprise work for everyone, even those who are still left behind in poverty, substandard housing, high unemployment and low-performing schools after the civil rights revolution.

Received by email:

THIS LITTLE SHITTY COUNTRY!!!!!
Here is a capsule of accomplishments you may not be fully aware of.
I thought you might find these statistics interesting.
The Middle East has been growing date palms for centuries. The average
tree is about 18-20 feet tall and yields about 38 pounds of dates a year.
Israeli trees are now yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to
be harvested from the ground or a short ladder.
Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population, can lay claim to the following:
The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development centre in Israel.
Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.
The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were
entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel.
The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.
Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US, in Israel.
The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996
by four young Israelis.!
Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S, Russia
and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel's air
force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16's. This is the largest fleet
of F-16 aircraft outside of the U. S.
According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industrie’s
most impenetrable flight security. U. S. officials now look to Israel for
advice on how to handle airborne security threats.
Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate
neighbours combined.
Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other
nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people - as well as one of
the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of start-up
companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number
of start-up companies than any other country in the world, except the U.S.
(3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech). With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world -- apart from the Silicon Valley, US.
Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the US.
Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number
of NASDAQ listed companies.
Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East.
The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups.

Twenty-four per cent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees,
ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and
Holland and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees.
Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at
risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.
When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she
became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.
When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli
rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims
from the rubble.
Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the
highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing
nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious
freedom, and economic opportunity.
Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process,
an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."

Israel has the world’s second highest per capita of new books.
Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century
with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because
this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

Medicine... Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized,
no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper
administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical
treatment. Every year in US hospitals 7,000 patients die from
treatment mistakes.
Israel's Givun Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera,
so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the
inside, the camera helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders.
Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the
heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among
those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the heart's
mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.
Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in
the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the US, over
70 in Japan and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force
employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the Clear Light device,
produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that
causes acne bacteria to self-destruct -- all without damaging surrounding
skin or tissue.
An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale
Solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in
southern California's Mojave desert.

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy
that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by
having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other
country on earth.
AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND SAYS ISRAEL IS NOTHING BUT A SHITTY LITTLE COUNTRY!!!

"In happier times, Americans' exposure to the BBC was limited to gems such as Fawlty Towers and Are You being Served?

In future it will be no laughing matter."

The reasons Gerard Baker, currently of The Times of London and an employee of the BBC for 7 years, sees the recent launch of a 24-hour BBC news channel in the United States in serious terms extend beyond the publically funded levy-athan's privileged poll tax base, which Baker describes thusly:

" ... (W)hile the BBC funds some of its international coverage from commercial sources, its prestige and brand prominence owe entirely to its vast $5bn worth of public funding back home. ... paid for by a compulsory ... levy on every household in the UK (on pain of imprisonment for non payment)."

Despite the probable range of opinions amongst its financiers, BBC management, "accountable to (virtually) noone", seems convinced American news is one-sided and aims to introduce the saturated US news market to "both sides of the story", says Baker.

His former-insider account of what such BBC-style even-handedness entails merely confirms what is already obvious:

"BBC News is produced by a very large team of ideological confreres, who, with a very few exceptions ...:

" ... think ... roughly, that capitalism is some sort of conspiracy by evil men against the ordinary working stiff and that big government and higher taxes are the only route to a fair society, ... (and) that Europe is the acme of human civilization ... (I)f only Britain and America would emulate it (or in Britain's case, completely subsume itself within it) the world would be a much better place.

" ... declines to call Islamist terrorists terrorists because the word is a value-loaded one, but it never fails to pore in infinite detail over every "atrocity" committed by America or British forces in Iraq.

" ... thinks in any case that the war on terror was all got up by oil industry tycoons and clever neocons and that there is no real threat from violent political Islamism at all.

" ... believes passionately in equal rights for homosexuals, though of course it urges cultural sensitivity when dealing with countries where such "deviancy" is rewarded by execution."