Waiting For The Last Trumpet

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com All will be cleansed and forgotten in the blessed moment when Palestine is free of the Jew. It is akin to the longing for the Last Trumpet of Judgment; the final attainment of Communism. But the earth disappoints. The world will never deliver the completeness of our dreams. Terrorism will befoul the land of the Arabs and what if the Jew remains? What despair would be equal to the tragedy? And yet ... All they have to do, with their hundreds of millions of talented people, is to spend a generation in peace, studying, building, using their vast oil wealth well and they will have grown so strong that they could crush Israel in a moment. But in the process they would have grown so wise that they would probably have no more need to do so. They will have regained their self-respect without recourse to dreams of murder. And then they will see Israel for what it is. A small, dusty patch of soil which is the sole refuge of a battered people, and extend their hand in sympathy.

RTWT -- it's not long.

Welcome To An Unrecognizable Geneva Convention

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com just goes to show how much damage modern political correctness has inflicted on the Geneva Convention. Article IV of the Geneva Conventions provided that the privilege of being treated as a prisoner of war would be given to combatants who fulfilled the following conditions: (a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) That of carrying arms openly; (d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. The advantages of using mufti are well known. And to prevent warfare from becoming an unrecognizable brawl, efforts were made to steer combat into contests betweeen uniformed armies. Incentives were provided to armies which fought in uniform, under discipline and according to normative policies. No longer. The rules of war have been wholly corrupted oddly enough, sometimes by the very same so-called Human Rights Advocates who profess to care for them.

That Pretty Much Makes My Day...

clipped from instapundit.com Most amusing line: A Hispanic advocacy group said Schwarzenegger's comments show his "ignorance on immigration issues." Because what would Arnold know about people who come from a different land, raised in another language, who want to make a life for themselves in America?

This is just hysterical! And sadly illustrates the difference between legal and illegal immigration while we're at it...

It's Elementary

clipped from www.nytimes.com The war in Iraq would be over in a week if the insurgents wore uniforms. Instead, they hide in plain sight, and Iraqi and American soldiers have no means of checking the true identity and history of anyone they stop. This is inexcusable. In Vietnam, the mobility of the Vietcong guerrilla forces was eventually crippled by a laborious hamlet-level census completed by hand in 1968. Biometric tracking and databases have since made extraordinary advances, yet our vaunted technical experts have failed at this elementary task in Iraq. Any time a car is stopped in the United States, the police run an immediate check. The New York Police Department tracks criminal trends by neighborhood and block in a real time database called Compstat. The Chicago police have handheld devices that send fingerprints over the airwaves and get a response in minutes.

The Gathering Storm (Part 23966)

clipped from powerlineblog.com The Bush administration placed its chips on Fatah. We promoted Mahmoud Abbas. We provided training to his "security forces." We pressured Israel to facilitate the opening of the Gaza crossing to Egypt under his (supposedly monitored) control. Eli Lake describes the rise of Hamas in Gaza as a defeat for the CIA. As Lake's reportage illustrates, it certainly humiliates the United States. It also directly threatens Israel. For whom is it a victory? Recall that the head of Hamas resides in Damascus and reports to Iran. The rise of Hamas and the imposition of an Islamic state in Gaza echoes the Khomeni revolution of 1979 in Iran. Why now? It seems highly unlikely that Hamas's move to seize the moment in Gaza lies anywhere but with Khomeni's successors in Iran.

The American Jew Army?

clipped from www.nypost.com We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can't govern themselves decently. We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel "gave back" the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other. The barbarity in Gaza has become so grotesque that not even the media's apologists for terror can ignore it (especially since Islamist fanatics began to target journalists). And there's humor in Hell: The Islamist madmen behind Hamas call Fatah fighters "the American Jew Army." We've come a long way, boychick, when fellow Arabs anoint the late Yasser Arafat's thugs as tools of the Great Satan and the Lesser Satan.

Says Who Again?

clipped from instapundit.com LOOK WHO'S TALKING: Harry Reid calls Generals Pace and Petraeus "incompetent." Reader Brett Conner, who sent word of this, writes: "As a veteran who has served under General Pace, I can attest to not only his competence but also his compassion for his Marines and as a member of the Joint Chiefs, all servicemembers. Senator Reid has crossed a sacred line between the military and our civilian leaders. One of the reasons I left the military was being stabbed in the back by our fellow countrymen. It happened to my father in Vietnam, and I didn't want to continue living through the same experience." I'm afraid a lot of people will view Harry Reid's statement that way. Of course, some folks like the way the Vietnam War turned out.

More "Perfect Sense" From al-Reuters

clipped from powerlineblog.com What's notable, for those who are connoisseurs of this particular form of insanity, is Reuters' caption: Female Palestinian would-be suicide bombers attend a news conference in Gaza May 21, 2007. Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of 'good' and 'evil' and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism, according to a report obtained by Reuters. (Mohammed Sale/Reuters) Yes, it all makes perfect sense: you have to watch out for those dangerous wackos who talk about "good" and "evil." Meanwhile, Reuters is looking for photos of Christian and Jewish suicide bombers and will publish them as soon as they can find them in their archives. It's hard to be positive about the chaos that is now raging in Gaza, and, apparently, spreading to the West Bank. But perhaps it's just as well that, for the time being at least, there is no Palestinian authority to which the Israelis can be pressured to surrender.

Not So Easy After All?

clipped from science.slashdot.org "The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active. The new data indicates the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. "Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve," the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome "poses some interesting mechanistic questions" that have yet to be answered."

Addiction

clipped from www.americanthinker.com His reception in Tirana is the kind of instant gratification you get when you pursue fluffy, Clinton-like policies, in this case an actual Clinton policy-instead of sticking to your guns and doing the harder thing, the right thing. Bush is experiencing the adulation that comes with taking the easier road, the politically expedient path, the more popular and politically correct direction. It feels good, and it's dangerously addictive. Once you've tasted the devil's love, it's that much harder to go back to doing the right thing. Just ask Bill Clinton.

Joshua And Caleb

clipped from article.nationalreview.com We are challenged to fight an enemy who wishes to deny us our freedom, and enslave us. We hear voices repeating the false intelligence of the ten, telling us that all is lost, that there is no hope. Iraq is lost, they say, and Iran must be appeased. I was just invited to a conference on “how to live with a nuclear Iran.” There will be more such voices, perhaps even a consensus that we cannot win, and must accept our doom. Joshua and Caleb saw more deeply, realized that their war could be won, and their cause was just, and refused to surrender to the “consensus” of the ten. In the end, they were proven correct, the war was won, and the Jews became a free people. The battle against tyranny is endless on this earth, and we can no more escape it than could the wandering Jews. I agree with the rabbi; the sin of abandoning hope and of surrendering to tyranny is even greater than idolatry. A terrible sin indeed.

Anyone Smart Enough To Be President...

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com But do the media by such practices make sensible government impossible? I think this is so, but only in two indirect ways. The first is that the media have sufficient power, through repetition of small bites, to excite the fight-or-flight impulse in the politician. And since he is a politician, that will almost invariably mean flight. A politician can thus be easily panicked into abandoning any sensible policy, by a media-created sensation of alarm. “In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits,” Mr Blair said. The second, and more effective way, is in what he implied, not what he stated. Good, or anyway, decent men and women, will not get into government, because they will not put their families through that. What can I prescribe? Nothing "systemic." Only something profoundly naive. We need journalists who are more honest and decent, and politicians, ditto.

... is smart enough not to be president. Well at least until our very survival is at stake. Don't worry, we're getting there quickly though. Don't you feel better now?

Noble Savage Again ... Not

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com It took more than twenty-five years, and a great deal of additional fieldwork and library research, for me finally to change my initial naive view of the past and of humans in general. My take on warfare is now very different from what it was. Though these new ideas about conflict seem exceedingly obvious to me, I arrived at these conclusions not by means of abstract theory, but by being forced to look at warfare based on conclusive evidence I found in the ground. The central importance of warfare throughout human history came to me slowly, prompted by archaeological fieldwork in a number of different regions and reinforced as I tried to reconcile theoretical positions that became increasingly impossible to accept.

The 4th Possibility

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com I will propose a 4th possibility. That a few hundred years ago tribal and incessant warfare was in fact the norm, even in Europe. Especially in Europe, but that somehow many societies have learned how to live in relative peace and freedom; yet somehow this eludes certain societies in the Middle East.

Two States At Last

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com The Jerusalem Post describes Hamas mopping up in Gaza and Fatah convening in its West Bank stronghold. "As of today, the Palestinians can boast that they have two entities - one in the Gaza Strip run by Muslim fundamentalists and another one in the West Bank under the control of secular Fatah leaders. "The two-state solution has finally worked," a Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip commented sarcastically." Ok. So who represents Palestine? Where is Palestine? With whom does Israel negotiate? What happened to Oslo?

What Does He Know?

clipped from www.washingtontimes.com FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday said that it was only a matter of time and economics before terrorists will be able to purchase nuclear weapons and that the world's law-enforcement community must unite to prevent it.

It's not like he's an authority on the subject or anything...

Ho-Hum, No News Here

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Two women journalists were recently murdered in the span of a week, according to Afghan Lord, for reasons unknown, although six suspects arrested were members of the Hezbe Islami Hekmatiar party. “Afghan men always believe women should stay at home; the men feed them and let them go out.”

Move along now...

Of Flies And Goobers

clipped from fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com Der Spiegel's version of how the Sunni insurgency in Iraq fragemented is here. The bottom line is that the splits weren't created by diplomatic genius. The terror gangs fell out over control. That's not surprising because terror produces nothing. It doesn't bring a single goober out of the ground. Terror groups are inevitably in a zero-sum competition for the available protection racket, foreign funding and media attention.

The (Ironically) Static Suicide Pact

clipped from powerlineblog.com As Congress recognized, our mortal enemy at this point in history is al-Qaeda, which happens not to be a nation. Our front in this war is everywhere, which is not a battleground. And the combatants who are intent on killing Americans are civilians -- right up until the moment when they hijack our planes or detonate a dirty nuke on the mall in Washington, D.C. It's a pity that so many judges seem oblivious to this reality, insisting that modern circumstances yield facts patterns identical to those that obtained in World War II or even the Civil War, and ruling against the government when, inevitably, they don't. It's also ironic that the same judges who, when it comes to inventing new rights, embrace the concept of a living constitution that evolves to fit the conditions of the day, refuse to look beyond narrow (and in this case, I think, erroneous) interpretations of Civil War and World War II cases when the issue is protecting our national security.

What's The M'Atta Here?

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Astoundingly, Justices Motz and Gregory did not doubt that al-Marri was just as dangerous as the administration claims him to be. Instead, they found that because al Qaeda is not a traditional national enemy, its operatives — stationed here in the United States to kill Americans — are mere civilians, not combatants. By their lights, even 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta wasn’t a combatant. Despite his enlistment in an organization waging war on America that had trained him and sent him here, he was just a civilian. Dissenting district judge Henry E. Hudson, sitting by designation from the Eastern District of Virginia, had it right: We are at war and Congress has authorized the president to use force against enemy operatives, including, as necessary, to detain them.

The more they get here, the less we can do to stop them apparently...

Rudy Gets Busy With 12

clipped from www.plnewsforum.com The Twelve Commitments: 1. I will keep America on offense in the Terrorists’ War on Us. 2. I will end illegal immigration, secure our borders, and identify every non-citizen in our nation. 3. I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful Washington spending. 4. I will cut taxes and reform the tax code. 5. I will impose accountability on Washington. 6. I will lead America towards energy independence. 7. I will give Americans more control over, and access to, healthcare with affordable and portable free-market solutions. 8. I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children. 9. I will reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges. 10. I will ensure that every community in America is prepared for terrorist attacks and natural disasters. 11. I will provide access to a quality education to every child in America by giving real school choice to parents.

The first 11 are decent. And here's the 12th:

12. I will expand America’s involvement in the global economy and strengthen our reputation around the world.

A sop to Wall Street globalizers apparently. I guess he was the mayor of New York after all...

Deep Memory Hole: He Looked The Other Way

clipped from powerlineblog.com This video of Al Gore excoriating the first President Bush in 1992 is pretty entertaining. His theme: the Reagan and Bush administrations failed to appreciate the monstrosity of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Iraq has carried out terrorist acts and supported terrorists, has active WMD programs and is in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons. And it's ridiculous to think that sanctions could work against Saddam.

Everyone needs to look at this one over and over and ask themselves what sort of ruthless opportunist and Orwellian media manipulator Gore needs to be to believe he can escape this video and hold his current positions. The charitable alternative could only be amnesiac...

Today's Innumeracy Cure

clipped from www.qando.net The Skeptical Optimist does a little digging into a paper by the Tax Foundation and charts the info. He suggests everyone read it as it is the first and only place he has found that categorizes the total federal tax burden by quintile.

The Missing Collateral

clipped from pajamasmedia.com The insurgents who kill our young soldiers are ruthless, but we have sometimes been cautious in our response. Take the question of targeting bomb makers: There may be an unlimited supply of explosives in Iraq, but there is not an unlimited supply of people who know how to wire the detonators. In 2004, CIA operatives in Iraq believed that they had identified the signatures of 11 bomb makers. They proposed a diabolical — but potentially effective — sabotage program that would have flooded Iraq with booby-trapped detonators designed to explode in the bomb makers’ hands. But the CIA general counsel’s office said no. There are technologies that would allow us to detonate every roadside bomb in Iraq by heating the wires in the detonators to the point that they triggered an explosion. But these systems could severely harm civilians nearby, so we’re not using them, either. “In our system, we often are not given credit for the fact that we are very concerned about collateral damage,” Meigs said.

What WMD? Part 92346

clipped from www.strategypage.com June 11, 2007: In Iraq, there have been at least ten suicide bombing attacks in the last year, that featured the use of chlorine. These were  attempts to use chlorine as a chemical weapon. So far, this have been unsuccessful, despite the fact that the first chemical weapon attack in modern history, in 1915, used 168 tons of chlorine gas. Then, as now,  chlorine proved to be an inefficient chemical weapon, and was quickly replaced by more effective ones. This is what has people worried in Iraq. The Islamic terrorists have also noted the ineffectiveness of their chlorine use in bombs, and intel monitoring has picked up lots of chatter about obtaining more powerful chemical weapons. There are still many people in Iraq, and most are Sunni Arabs, who know how to manufacture more lethal chemical agents (like mustard gas, which burns skin, eyes, or your lungs, if you inhale it).

The Imaginary Super Power

clipped from www.strategypage.com The really bad news is, most Russians are still not aware of how screwed up their Soviet era military was. There are two reasons for this. First, Russians take for granted how their armed forces operates. Russians complain about the brutality and incompetence in the military, but that's all they've ever known. Second, Russians remember fondly that their ramshackle armed forces defeated the Germans during World War II. What the Russians play down is how much the Germans lost World War II in Russia, rather than being beaten. The Germans made a lot of serious mistakes during the war, while the Russians got their act together. What Russians fail to realize is that the Soviet Union was an accidental, and largely imaginary, superpower. Russia has long employed large scale deception, and the Soviet Union continued this on a sustained basis.

The Visa Due Nothing

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com Leys had got into mainland China, and got out, largely on his own terms. He had seen enough with his own eyes to know what he could credit and discredit from the eyes of others. In a book of surprisingly few pages he said more, more cogently, about the horror of Maoism than any other author. He is long since banned from entering mainland China; for he never compromised himself. Almost all “China experts” -- from that day to this -- have compromised themselves, for professional reasons. Which is to say, they dare not write anything that could cost them their next visa into China, for being able to come and go is part of the China expert’s credentials, and his connexions to the Chinese official class are likewise necessary to maintaining an air of smugness towards those without credentials. His motto is from Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Slaves

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com Garry Kasparov, of Russia: "Russia today is a police state masquerading as a democracy where elections are theatre. The problem is that the G8 treats Putin as an equal. ... Putin must be sent a message that he cannot act like an Alexander Lukashenko or Robert Mugabe and be treated like a democrat." There is no price too high for human liberty, and those who dispute this are, and deserve to be, slaves.

The Enron Eternity

clipped from powerlineblog.com "Ethically challenged" doesn't really do the Democrats justice. Picture a gang of drunken sailors who have broken into the ship's rum supply, and you're near the mark. Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner has a column at Townhall on the latest outrage. Read it all for the details, but the essence is that the Dems have figured out a way to foil the earmark transparency reforms the Republicans enacted when they were in control of the House. The Dems' scheme is to establish a slush fund that will allow them to "air drop" pork projects into legislation at the conference committee stage, when it's too late for them to be identified publicly. You have to hand it to the Democrats: when it comes to creative corruption, Enron had nothing on them. I think the voters are starting to notice. Scott Rasmussen's latest survey has Harry Reid in a dead heat with Scooter Libby, each with a 19% approval rating. And Reid hasn't even been convicted of anything yet!

And Many Other Things...

clipped from onecosmos.blogspot.com And who has the musical vision to "integrate" all of the musical gaps between Bach's indivdual works, and apprehend the higher dimensional unity from which they flow? I'm guessing that there's some mystico-musically gifted person out there who has done it. In a way, this is again what Joyce was attempting in Finnegans Wake: to describe the single hyperdimensional object as it passes through our world as the experience of "history." Joyce simply took seriously the idea that "time is the moving image of eternity." And if that's true, then every passing moment is a unique and priceless snapshot of the eternal Magic Mountain. And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that could be written. --John 21:25

With A Side Of Fellatio...

clipped from nytimes.blogspace.com Yes, it's all karaoke and an amazingly commerce-free tourist experience in North Korea. The LA Times - which was last caught fellating the brutal fascist dictatorship of North Korea in March of 2005 - hits its knees again today.

Virgins Again

clipped from tigerhawk.blogspot.com This is important, I suppose, since "access to virgins" is every five-year-old's dream. The casual regard for the lives of children reflects the broader idea that the killing of civilians really does not matter, because Allah will sort them out in the end. The pious will go straight to heaven which in all accounts is better than this hell we call Earth, and the impious will get what they deserve all the sooner. Blasting people apart with car bombs or burying them in the rubble of skyscrapers just hastens the sorting process, which serves divine justice.

Copperhead Comeback

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com Abraham Lincoln once realized that a point had been reached, when freedom for some could no longer co-exist with slavery for others, within America; that one or the other would have to go. I made myself unpopular several years ago by remarking that Bush had reached the same conclusion about the world at large. I said he was Lincolnesque. I am still convinced that Bush thinks like Lincoln. I observe, however, that this time around, the forces of the Union are losing.

Bafflement

clipped from www.victorhanson.com If ragtag jihadists can silence Europe’s self-styled courageous intelligentsia over a few cartoons or an opera, imagine what a nuclear China will soon do. When Bush spends billions on AIDS in Africa, asks the EU3 and the U.N. to deal with Iran, and relents on global warming, it earns him as much support from Europeans as generous federal spending, prescription drugs, No Child Left Behind, and immigration reform did at home from liberals. Why? Because most of the anger and outrage is not over substance so much as a sense of lost power — the Europeans of their lost world before 1939, the American Left of the halcyon days of the 1960s. But for now hold on, as the Russians get angrier, the jihadists more desperate, Mr. Ahmadinejad closer to Armaggedon, the Chinese more eager to match new power with now old money, Europe more terrified — and the United States ever more baffled by it all.

A Little Perspective

clipped from www.breitbart.com Nearing the end of an eight-day trip, Bush got a hero's reception in this desperately poor country, still struggling to recover from being cut off from the rest of the world for four decades under the harsh rule of dictator Enver Hoxha. Hoxha died in 1985, and Albania emerged from isolation in 1990 but still is one of Europe's most impoverished lands. Cannons boomed salutes from mountains overlooking the capital. Huge banners proclaimed "Proud to be Partners," and billboards read "President Bush in Albania Making History." At home, Bush's job approval rating stands at its all-time low. But here, Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Bush was Albania's "greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times." Throngs of people grasped Bush's hands, arms and fingers on the streets of Fushe Kruje, a small town near the airport where he stopped to chat in a cafe with business owners. Unused to such adoring crowds in America, Bush reveled in the attention.

Pillar's "Fool's Errand" Dissected

clipped from powerlineblog.com I have no idea how much weight President Bush gave to these intelligence reports. Maybe, by January 2003, he had given up on getting any meaningful input from agencies that were far more interested in protecting their own images and budgets, and perhaps in undermining an administration that did not share their overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic orientation, than in going out on a limb to give the President their best judgment. But, to the extent that President Bush heeded what the Intelligence Council told him in late 2002 and early 2003, it is simply false to say that he disregarded a warning that a war with Iraq would be a “fool’s errand.”

This one is a RTWT...

Spooked

clipped from www.technologyreview.com European scientists have broken a distance record for sending quantum information from one place to another, paving the way for a system that relies on the laws of physics to provide communications that can't be tapped. If they can extend the reach of their signal a little further, they'll be able to use satellites to send perfectly secure data around the world. To create the key, the team first had to create pairs of entangled photons. Entanglement, which Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance," means that the fate of one photon is tied up with the fate of the other. Measuring any quantum mechanical property of one photon automatically changes that same property in its entangled partner, no matter the distance between them.

Ambulance ... TV ... Whatever

clipped from instapundit.com THEY'VE ALREADY USED AMBULANCES, so why should anyone be surprised when Palestinian terrorists use a car labelled "TV" to stage an attack? It's all upside for them -- no significant outrage now, and maybe it'll lead the Israelis to accidentally shoot up a truck full of real reporters, which will then cause worldwide condemnation. Of the Israelis. UPDATE: TigerHawk comments: And when it happens that condemnation will be outrageous precisely because it is so predictable. Palestinian strategists understand the objective, which is to put the Israeli military in an impossible situation. Everybody else also understands the objective, and -- this is the big point -- everybody understands that the Palestinian strategists understand. It is one giant cesspool of known-knowns, so those who condemn Israel when it happens will be, yes, collaborators. That's why it's hard for me to even pretend to take moralizing in this area seriously.

You just RTWT.

Rethinking Carbon Offsets

clipped from www.tcsdaily.com So, far from "not counting," secular religions must be taken very seriously, and their implications understood, before we preach the benefits of godless society. The obvious examples of secularized religions are communism, socialism, and fascism, each of which generally involves worshipping government by slightly different rituals or for slightly different reasons. As these convictions faded, faith in the welfare state, and especially environmental protection, has risen to take their place for reasons government should be worshipped. Environmentalist devotees claim that we will experience the apocalypse disasters, for which some people are rebuilding Noah's Ark. These disasters can be prevented if we take the advice of prophets people who understand, like Al Gore. Of course, if we sin pollute a little too much, well, we can always buy indulgences carbon offsets.

Shawcross Redux And Iraq

clipped from powerlineblog.com Those of us who opposed the American war in Indochina should be extremely humble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. Looking back on my own coverage for The Sunday Times...,I think I concentrated too easily on the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnamese and their American allies, was too ignorant of the inhuman Hanoi regime, and far too willing to believe that a victory by the Communists would provide a better future. But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags. Their eloquent testimony should have put paid to all illusions. As Jeff commented in a message to us last year: "Whatever else he may believe or advocate, Shawcross seems clearly to be a man of intellectual integrity. That makes his thoughts on the current crisis all the more valuable."

Still Silent On Spring

clipped from www.nytimes.com She cited scary figures showing a recent rise in deaths from cancer, but she didn’t consider one of the chief causes: fewer people were dying at young ages from other diseases (including the malaria that persisted in the American South until DDT). When that longevity factor as well as the impact of smoking are removed, the cancer death rate was falling in the decade before “Silent Spring,” and it kept falling in the rest of the century. Why weren’t all of the new poisons killing people? An important clue emerged in the 1980s when the biochemist Bruce Ames tested thousands of chemicals and found that natural compounds were as likely to be carcinogenic as synthetic ones. Dr. Ames found that 99.99 percent of the carcinogens in our diet were natural, But scientists like him were no match for Ms. Carson’s rhetoric. DDT became taboo even though there wasn’t evidence that it was carcinogenic (and subsequent studies repeatedly failed to prove harm to humans).