#3
To say that stars aren't good role models is, I think, painting with too broad a brush. Sure, sure, Betelgeuse is red and bloated, and Alpha Centauri lives in some sort of group marriage arrangement. But our own sun is the perfect example of a modest, unassuming, and useful star. Oh, not glamorous, of course. Perhaps by being there for us, every day, we tend to forget how...
#1
Don't think for a moment this is an energy saver. Compared to a 50cc motorcycle which have been around for many years, it will require 2 to 5 times as much energy due to the large inefficiences of the 'hydrogen economy'.
#4
Natural gas powered vehicles are common here in Western Australia. Pretty much every taxi in town uses it. Phil F is right, it makes no sense to turn NG into electricity, distribute it, store in fuel cells before using it to power a vehicle (and lose 80% of the energy) when you just as easily power the vehicle directly from NG. More Kyoto inspired lunacy.
#5
How explosive is Natural Gas? How explosive is hydrogen?
I think the crew of the shuttle Challenger can answer the second question and I haven't seen anyone talking about making it safer when rammed into cars. Oh, and there is the freezing aspect to your gas tank when you're using liquid hydrogen. Don't slip forward on your seat. Ouch.
#6
Hydrogen can be explosive (but usually just burns), but NG is really nasty stuff. Empty NG tanks have exploded, causing huge fires and killing firemen.
Car and Driver has an article on a hydrogen-powered car. The fuel is stored as a room-temperature gas (under very high pressure), not as a liquid.
Hydrogen can a pretty decent fuel, if generated by water dissociation powered by nuclear plants.
Still, right now, nothing is as convient and powerful as gasoline, though diesel comes close.
#7
How explosive is Natural Gas? How explosive is hydrogen?
I think the crew of the shuttle Challenger can answer the second question and I haven't seen anyone talking about making it safer when rammed into cars. Oh, and there is the freezing aspect to your gas tank when you're using liquid hydrogen. Don't slip forward on your seat. Ouch.
There is a common misconception that the loss of the Challenger was due to the launch stack exploding. Thsi as been fostered by the media IMO simply because they saw a large cloud generated at the time of the accident. What really led to the Challenger's loss was when the SRB suffered the exhaust gas plume at the field joint where the SRB segments were joined it happend at one of the worst possible places. At the rear attachment strut holding the SRB to the External Tank. The gasses playing on the strt either weakened it to the failure point or cut it. When the strut failed the SRB was able to rotate outward at the rear causing the whole launch stack to Jaw severly to one side. This placed stresses on the orbiter and External tank that they were not designed to take and as a consequence they came apart like a cheap suit. The large cloud was simply the LH2 and LO2 being released into the atmosphere. If the LH2 and LO2 had combined chemically in an explosion I doubt that they would of been able to recover pieces of wreckage the size they did. Of course the real culprit IMO in the loss of Challenger was a Congress that forced NASA to accept the bid from Morton Thiokol for the SRB because they were the cheapest when they had the worst design offered for the SRB. But we didn't hear a word about that did we.
#8
How explosive is Natural Gas? Yesterday, the local news had some spectacular footage of a Liquid NG powered car blowing up when the driver lit a cigarette. However, the driver survived with only moderate burns. Unlike petrol, NG doesn't stick to the skin.
#9
Cheddarhead pretty much has the situation nailed; the shuttle Challenger broke apart because it exceeded the maximum safe angle of attack for its speed and broke up.
Well, except for the part about the SRB's being the worst possible design. The worst possible design for a large SRB is "any."
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/16/2005 18:26 Comments ||
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#10
Amen.
So let's take the perfected SRBs and put a Taxi on it! Yes! It'll be fun.
The old shaman can shake his feathers and rattle his bones at us all he wants, but the net is here to stay. EFL.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for "paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry". None of which, obviously, are found in the traditional media.
He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was "close to that of unpoliced conversation". "Unpoliced conversation"? The horror! Isn't that how the evil, world-destroying USA got started? This statement highlights another point of agreement between the religious left and its ally in the campaign to roll back the Enlightenment, militant Islam.
Thou shalt have only proper conversations.
In a lecture to media professionals, politicians and church leaders at Lambeth Palace in London last night, Dr Williams wondered whether a balance could be struck between the professionalism of the classical media and the relative disorder of online communication. Online professionalism is the answer, and this is enforced by massive and immediate feedback. This can give the online journalist an inherent advantage in credibility, as can the multiplicity of search and checking options.
Dr Williams also extended his wide-ranging critique of journalistic practice to the traditional media, arguing that there are "embarrassingly low levels of trust" in the profession and that claims about what is in the public interest need closer scrutiny. The net is doing exactly that, holding to the MSM to account for the first time in their history and changing the world in the process.
He called for a "more realistic, less fevered" approach to stories by journalists and added: "There is a difference between exposing deceptions that sustain injustice and attacking confidentialities or privacies that in some sense protect the vulnerable."
"So leave me and my pecadillos alone, you hear me?" he added in a soft voice.
He attacked the "high levels of adversarial and suspicious probing" that send the clear message that any kind of concealment means "guilty until proved innocent", and he challenged journalists and broadcasters to attempt to regain lost public confidence. That is impossible, the institutional media are collapsing because their malfeasance is finally being exposed, and this malfeasance is now recognized as inherent in the nature of centralized activist media themselves. They cannot reform, even if their pathological hubris would permit it.
#2
In a lecture to media professionals, politicians and church leaders at Lambeth Palace in London last night, Dr Williams wondered whether a balance could be struck between the professionalism of the classical media and the relative disorder of online communication.
There is already a balance. And the media are about 20 year overdue with facts. So we are calling them up and demanding facts instead of agenda, and they are late. (Can you tell I do some collections? ;o) )
There is also a balance as well. The media beats us over the head with agenda, and we beat them with facts. Someone is going to lose this fight in a public marketplace of ideas.
Just a hint: It ain't this dhimmi and his dhimmettes in the BBC.
#4
muck - he's probably talking about Instapundit or Michelle Malkin. If he were ever to read Rantburg, his eyes would jump out of their sockets and burst into flames...
The institutional media's business model is collapsing. They are losing ad revenues and serious news consumers in droves. The agenda peddling and malfeasance merely accelerates the process.
#6
âclose to that of unpoliced conversationâ
Lol, what do you mean "close"? The net IS "unpoliced conversation", and more the better for it. Who the hell wants "policed conversation"?
#8
I just spent the last month listening to the "Democratic" Party tell us how eeevil Christians are. So obviously I'm not going to listen to you, Chuckles.
#9
God help him and his church! LOL Concealment as a virtue of sorts? For snipers, submarines, vunerable animals and insects, fraudsters and criminals surely it is needed. Concealment is no virtue to uphold in the public realm although it is a necessary evil in some contexts. To be tolerated but not applauded. Concealment is very often a telling sign of guilt. Journalists are not disliked generally for failing to practice concealment. Quite the opposite, they are roundly criticized for concealing the identity of nonexistent, extremely biased, or misconstrued sources. They are roundly criticized for concealing inconvenient facts that are material to what they are reporting but not consistent with the tenor, opinion or bias of that reporting.
#10
I guess since the good Archbishop can't figure out how to keep butts in the pews at the creaky COE, he thought it was good time to start burnishing his credentials as media critic.
Give the man credit, though: you have to really work hard to develop an ear that tone-deaf.
#11
Look, the guy's a druid, but not a good one since the Druids have not had a single wickerman full of criminals burned since he took office.
This guy's a fake, a pretender, a fool who played one too many games of Dungeons and Dragons and lost his grip. Idiot, Odin, Thor and their Norse berserkers could kick the crap out of your panzy Celtic gods. If you're gonna worship mythology at least find an ass-kicking pantheon you losers.
#15
I go to an Episcopal church (and I disavow any org higher than my parish), and we pray for this guy every week. However, my prayer is always that this guy gets a clue.
#16
Yeah, well the Internet denounces YOU, Mr. Archdruid guy. How do you like them apples?
Posted by: The Internet ||
06/16/2005 14:38 Comments ||
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#17
Blair Broadcasting Company (BBC) can not blame people for not listening anymore, thatâs what eventually happens when someone keeps telling lies and the trouble is once someone gets a name like that it becomes very hard to shake it off
#18
"Er, um, Mr. Schwarz, one of the problems in Britain is all the people who follow a violent mythology. I don't think we need any more of those"
Um, no. If you act submissive you encourage the strong to make you their b1tch. If you act strong they will look elsewhere. Nobody would call the worshipers of Odin submissive.
Posted by: ed ||
06/16/2005 23:52 Comments ||
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#22
Barb
My family (dad's side) were the keepers of Thor's holy grove. The whole bunch were excommunicated from the Church for 100 years before even converting...
#23
I believe the Druids disappeared for centuries after the great Roman ass whooping and then they reemerged (I could be wrong but I think about the same time as D&D was invented).
Why could the Odin worshipers not reappear, it's all mythology and self-dillusion anyway.
A strain of bird flu infecting poultry in North Korea is different from that which killed scores of people in other parts of Asia, a UN expert has said. Hans Wagner, an official for the Food and Agriculture Organization, said the birds were infected with the H7 strain. The strain that has decimated poultry stocks and caused recent human deaths in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam is the more virulent H5N1 strain. North Korea has culled 219,000 birds to tackle the outbreak, Mr Wagner said.
"We have a new situation, because H7 has so far not occurred in Asia," he told reporters. We don't know where the virus came from," he said, adding that UN experts would now try to trace the source of the infection, to prevent future outbreaks. H7 can cause illness in humans, but outbreaks of the strain have not been as severe as those caused by H5N1. H5N1 has killed almost 50 people since its resurgence in South East Asia in December 2003. When North Korea first announced that three of its farms had been infected with bird flu last month, analysts warned that the virus could wipe out the poverty-stricken country's chicken industry. Poultry production is one of the few growing sectors in North Korea, which has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since the mid-1990s.
HEREFORD, England, June 16 (UPI) -- The world's oldest married man, Percy Arrowsmith, who said marital happiness was based on the words "Yes, Dear," died in England at the age of 105.
Yup, that's how mine works
Percy Arrowsmith died peacefully at his home with his wife Florence, 100, at his side Wednesday morning, the BBC reported. The couple celebrated their 80th anniversary June 1, earning them a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest-married couple.
I remember going to my grandparents 50th when I was a little boy. They almost made 60 before Grampa Joe passed away.
Speaking to reporters at their home in Hereford at the time, the couple said their success was based on still being in love and not going to bed angry.
Arrowsmith is survived by his wife, three children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Rest easy, Percy.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/16/2005 11:27 ||
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#1
Lingering in the icy hand of Thanatos, waiting for the sweet release of death/His prayer finally answered, his pain relieved, that blissful freedom of annihilation/Comes none too swift, but in coming, without cruel delay or trepidation, steals.
#3
They also got a note from the queen on their 80th. Prince Chuck sent instructions for them not to tell their secret to mom, The one whose mom lived to 101.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/16/2005 15:41 Comments ||
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#4
Olde Joke
Outline:
Reporter: What do you attribute your 105 yr life.
Old Man: Clean living
WHAM!
Repoter: What in the hell was that?
Old Man: Nothin, Mum just hit Pop with a fry pan for coming home drunk at mid morn again.
One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern history, the ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have been found, 65 years after it was apparently stolen from the Mexican police. The daughter of a former secret service agent claims she has the steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained with the blood of the Russian revolutionary.
Exiled by Joseph Stalin, Trotsky lived a relatively settled life in a leafy suburb of Mexico City until his death in 1940. Trotsky was always fearful of assassination attempts organised by Stalin. He was finally caught off guard by Ramon Mercader, who on August 20 1940 got access to him on the pretext of needing help. Once in the study, Mercader struck the creator of the Red Army in the head from behind with the shortened pick he had hidden under his clothes. Murderer and ice-pick were taken into custody but the weapon later disappeared.
Now Ana Alicia Salas says her father, Commander Alfredo Salas, stole the pick because he wanted to preserve it for posterity.
Trotsky's grandson Seva Volkov, who lived with his grandfather at the time and still lives in Mexico, is willing to provide samples for a DNA test against the blood on the handle only if Salas donates the pick to the museum in the house where the murder took place.
But she said: "I am looking for some financial benefit. I think something as historically important at this should be worth something, no?"
Good old capitalism. Trotsky is rotating rapidly ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/16/2005 00:30 ||
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I could put it to good use.....in my capacity as a geologist, that is.
Even Stalin, loathesome mass-murdering monster though he was, could sometimes get something right, like driving Hitler to suicide, initiating the Soviet Space Program, and having an icepick inserted into Trotsky's skull.
#10
AC-
My kid (probably the only punk rocker in captivity who's registered Republican)says just go with Trotsky's Icepick. Has a nice ring to it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/16/2005 7:25 Comments ||
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#11
says her father, Commander Alfredo Salas, stole the pick because he wanted to preserve it for posterity.
Well then, I'd wager it still belongs to the Mexican police. Since it seems to be worth money, as well as a historic artifact, I'm thinking they will be having a chat with her.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/16/2005 8:28 Comments ||
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#12
Give you a couple hundred bucks for it. Give you a thousand if you can change the name to the "Ice-pick That Killed Trotsky and Il-Jung".
#13
But she said: "I am looking for some financial benefit..."
And there's the rub. Dad absconds with the murder weapon, time passes (and hopefully the item's value increases), then the offspring tries to profit from its return. Somehow, I'm not in the least bit surprised that this is happening in Mexico.
Yes, it was an ice ax with the shaft sawed-off so that it could be conealed under a coat. Also, Mercader used the broad "adze" end of the ice ax, not the pointy "pick" end.
...or something like that.
Korea Times:
Dong-A to Challenge Multinationals in Anti-Impotence Drug Market And that's some stiff competition, I'm guessin'...
Dramatic video footage emerged yesterday showing violent clashes between Chinese farmers trying to protect their land from hundreds of men armed with shotguns, clubs and pipes, allegedly sent by the state to evict them. The typical modus operandus when these things occur. We need a new term for this, like Car Swarm or Crossfire.
How about 'revolution'?
Six farmers were reported killed and as many as 100 others were seriously injured in one of China's deadliest incidents of rural unrest in years. In an unedited version of the three-minute video, seen by The Scotsman, swarms of young men dressed in fatigues and wearing helmets led a dawn raid against a line of trenches and makeshift tents, which the farmers had built as part of a two-year campaign against a local- government plan to persuade them to sell their land to a nearby power station. Armed with clubs and metal bars, the attackers can be seen fighting hand-to-hand with the farmers, who are wielding pitchforks and shovels. Of course, the Scotsman will not be showing the video to us, it's too difficult for the peons to understand.
The battle took place last Saturday in the village of Shengyou, 100 miles outside of Beijing. It has since been reported that the villagers have overrun the local headquarters of the Communist Party in protest. Although it is not unusual for rural protests to turn violent, they rarely end in so many deaths. Nor are protests usually resolved using hired hands. It is also rare for the fighting to be caught on camera.
Initial negotiations over the land in question had proved inconclusive. "We're the Party, and we can make the best use of this land. Plus, we're going to make a fortune on graft. So get off."
According to the Washington Post, villagers had refused an earlier cash offer from the power station, which, since 2003, has been negotiating with farmers to convert the land into a coal-storing facility. Look, shiny pennies!
Local governments can choose to exercise their right to seize the land, usually paying minimal compensation, if it is deemed to be in the "public interest" - a loosely phrased term that critics have complained is regularly abused. In this case, it appears the local government gave the green light to the power station to remove the farmers. Both the local mayor and Communist Party leader have reportedly since been fired. Scapegoats. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
In April this year, pitched battles between 20,000 villagers in the eastern Zhejiang province and police proved inconclusive after villagers began protesting over a nearby industrial park, saying that it was polluting their land. In this incident in Zhejiang, the local Party officials bused in a bunch of guys, gave them shields and sticks, and told them they were riot police. They didn't want to be there, morale was low. And when one of the officials ran over an old lady who was blocking the roadway by lying down, the peasants went berserk. You don't mess with old people in China. The "riot police" ran away.
Despite the attack, the farmers remained defiant, and in control of the area of disputed land. Fight the good fight, boys.
#2
In an unedited version of the three-minute video, seen by The Scotsman, swarms of young men dressed in fatigues and wearing helmets led a dawn raid against a line of trenches and makeshift tents
People's Army? Local goon squad? Who are we dealing with here? Or is this another one of those "business disputes"?
Wait till the goons debus their transportation and move up. That's when a good petro bomb into the bus will shut their quick escape route. Then follow the thugs at a distance, picking off stragglers, take cheap shots. See how far the city folk can walk and then run. Some farmers up in Massachusetts played that game a long time ago.
The Government has admitted it has made a massive miscalculation in the cost of the Kyoto Protocol. Original estimates were that New Zealand would have a surplus of 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide credits between 2008 and 2012, worth around $450 million. Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson says new estimates put it at a deficit of 36.2 million tonnes. That will cost New Zealand $543 million, and it will have to be borne by the taxpayer. Mr Hodgson says it is largely due to huge growth in energy and industrial process emissions. He claims the Government would still have ratified Kyoto if it knew of the deficit risks. New Zealand will now have to cut its emissions, or buy carbon credits on the international market to the tune of $543 million. Mr Hodgson rejects accusations the first estimates were a gross miscalculation. He says the error is a change in assumptions, which will always be the case in energy issues. The New Zealand economy is small. You have to multiply these numbers by at least 100 to get the equivalent effect on the US economy (by 8 or 9 for Australia). Combine this with the recent news on forest being cut down as a direct result of Kyoto and steep increases in the cost of energy to consumers and the Kyoto lunacy would have given the USA a 100 billion budget hole after cutting down upwards of 5 million acres of forest, combined with a sharp increase in inflation, and for something that even if it were a good idea (and its not) just isn't working.
#2
Original estimates were that New Zealand would have a surplus of 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide credits between 2008 and 2012, worth around $450 million
Happens to me all the time when I reverse the sales tax payments and liabilities. Throws the books all out of balance until I do it right. ;o)
The left never is very good with accounting. That is why Bush got hammered for the dotcom bust when it was said that the old ways of doing business (profits, acountability ) are gone. It is also why I call Kyoto voodoo environmentalism.
Theyll never get it.
And a $1 trillion difference is quite a bit, all joking aside.
#5
Kyoto is a crock of shit. By the UN's own figures, if implemented fully and at its highest and best, Kyoto would only slow climate change down by about 3 months over 100 years (quoting from memory).
Now explain to me why that is worth wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on?
A couple of months of difference.
There is no logic in it whatsoever. We might as well spend billions building a giant umbrella to sheild the earth from solar radiation or any other crackpot idea as Kyoto.
Of course if the world were smart and didn't think that pouring billions after a mere symbolic gesture (and Bono was so persuasive!) then we would instead divert a few of those billions preparing ourselves for the inevitable climate change.
Building water purification/pipelines/desalination plants for example.
Converting car engines to run on ethanol: it works and there's already the infrastructure of oil distribution that can be converted to ethanol distribution.
Or just nothing at all and keep the cash! Anything is better than throwing billions down the Kyoto void.
I'm sad because I really like New Zealand, it's a great country. What a shame they signed that stupid protocol.
#6
Check this out, written in 1998 by Glenn Woiceshyn:
To convince countries to support the Protocol a counterfeit "scientific consensus" was concocted by UN bureaucrats. First came a 1995 UN scientific report which explicitly claimed no discernible manmade global warming. Then, a policymakers' summary was prepared from the report and stressed the opposite conclusion -- one based solely on computer models which don't match historical data and which incorporate assumptions that grossly exaggerate the warming effect of carbon dioxide. To eliminate the contradiction, the politically undesirable statements in the science report were quietly removed, yet the authors' names were retained.
Following this blatant act of politicizing science, more than 140 climate scientists (including several TV meteorologists) rebelled and signed the Leipzig Declaration, which states that "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide ... actual observations from weather satellites show no global warming whatsoever -- in direct contradiction to computer models."
...
Troubled by this blatant assault on objectivity in science, more than 17,000 basic and applied scientists have, to date, signed a petition against the Kyoto Protocol, spearheaded by Frederick Seitz, a former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. A scientific article accompanying this petition -- in addition to debunking the theory that rising carbon dioxide levels are causing global warming and catastrophic weather -- demonstrates that the extra man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere actually creates a greener planet, the alleged goal of environmentalists.
According to the article: "Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the CO2 increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life as that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."
So what explains the environmentalists zeal to push a socialistic Kyoto Protocol in the name of creating a greener planet? Decades ago, when it became apparent to people that Marxism ... yielded poverty and murderous dictatorships, not prosperity as promised, many leftists switched to environmentalism. ... In essence, the reds merely painted themselves green.
(And i would add that they merely use Kyoto as a punishing stick to beat the 'rich' industrial nations as the 3rd world polluters China, Indonesia and India don't have to reduce any emissions at all. Instead of stealing from the wealthy class to give to the poor within one nation now they want to steal from the rich nations and give to the poor nations.)
#15
AP is right. This charade will collapse once the bills start coming in. It's good clean tranzi fun only as long as it feels like they are playing with other people's money.
#16
If the enviros and nimbys (and admittedly, some sloppiness on the part of the industry)hadn't sabotaged the US nuclear power program we would probably be emitting about 5% less CO2 today (assuming we'd have about triple the nuclear energy).
#17
Hodgson rejects accusations the first estimates were a gross miscalculation. He says the error is a change in assumptions
Doesn't that suggest that their assumptions were made in error, even if the calculations were correct? I mean, clearly there's an error here somewhere.
#18
Poor Papua New Zealand. As if they don't have enough problems, now they have to come up with 543 million smackeroos, all on the output of a tribal, subsistence economy.
Someone call Sally Struthers.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
06/16/2005 12:28 Comments ||
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#19
"See, we assumed that 1 + 1 = 11. It seemed logical enough, and besides, mathematics is just sooo fascist."
Posted by: Matt ||
06/16/2005 13:49 Comments ||
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The European Union risks "permanent crisis and paralysis" unless it can persuade member nations to adopt a constitution, the bloc's top official warned Wednesday on the eve of a crucial summit.
Maybe you should try a different constitution?
Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission's president, also said the EU must honor its commitments to Turkey and other nations regarding their future membership in the bloc despite public concern about the expansion plans. That concern has been cited as a contributing factor to the recent French and Dutch "no" votes on the proposed EU charter. Leaders of the EU's 25 member nations begin their two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday. The gathering has been billed as an opportunity to stoke new confidence in the EU, which rarely has looked more divided.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/16/2005 00:00 ||
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Henny Penny
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/16/2005 1:00 Comments ||
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#2
They'll try again and again until they get their final election.
#3
I think the light is starting to dawn in many quarters in Europe that a constitution is actually a fairly important thing. Something best not left to simpletons who believe themselves elite.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/16/2005 7:28 Comments ||
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#5
Unwilling to address their genuine problems, Europeans Democrats become more reflexively critical of America Republicans. This gives the impression that they're active on the world national stage, even as they're quietly acquiescing in their own decline.
Yeah, that works!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/16/2005 8:42 Comments ||
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#6
2b notes one lie. I think this is another, and more telling of the author's mindset:
"This is the classic dilemma of democracy: Too many people benefit from the status quo to change it; but the status quo isn't sustainable."
Classic dilemma of democracy? Not from where I am standing.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
06/16/2005 9:01 Comments ||
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#7
"Classic dilemma" isn't quite what the author meant, I think. "Famous pitfall" would be better. And it is a problem, here and abroad. Too many people want their industries protected, their jobs secured by law, and so on. But it isn't sustainable. Why aren't we moving on immigration control? Too many people benefit from the status quo.
Does " 'democratic behavior' mean(s) the behavior that democracies like or the behavior that will preserve a democracy"? (Screwtape)
Posted by: James ||
06/16/2005 10:31 Comments ||
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#8
"...A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury..." -- Alexander Tyler. One of the reasons that the US is so successful is because it understands the value of the republican-democracy. Democracy balanced in several ways by "the concerned minority". For example, the more democratic House is balanced against the less democratic Senate. The more democratic Congress is balanced by the less democratic Presidency, and the undemocratic Judiciary. The President is not popularly elected, but elected by the Electoral College. This means that "populists" will rarely be able to ride the tide of public emotion to real power. Even to some extent, there is a balance between State and federal power. All told, it is very difficult to muster the illusion of government control, which is craved by all governments, unless you both consider what the majority want *and* what the "concerned minority" want.
I have to agree with the writer. The EU Constitution wasn't radical in the sense that it merely got all of the idiocy going on in Europe stuffed into one (very large) sock. The EU Constitution did not invent onerous regulations, economic micro-management, stifling freedom of expression, ridiculous politically correct platitudes, utopian environmental rules and a codification of sloth, indifference and laziness on the part of the citizenry.
#11
TGA, Europe's cutting it pretty close with that birth rate thing.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/16/2005 17:45 Comments ||
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#12
TGA
You obviously don't know the old russian joke: tIn the yearly parade of the Red Army on the Red Place. Everything is in it: missiles, artillery tanks, planes, infantry. And suddenly appaers a cohort of people in plain clothes, with beer bellies, quite aged, with no visible weapons. A westerner diplomat asks: "Who are those people?" His neighbour answers: "these are the apparatchiks. You have no idea of their capacity of destruction."
#13
Mrs Davis, have a look at Japan's birthrates. Or, funny enough, those of Mexico.
We'll probably need more immigration, just not from Muslim countries. And Europe will remain attractive enough for those immigrants. Life ain't bad here.
The future has many unknowns. And the bureaucrats just reveived their first warning from "we the people".
Sorry, for someone who has seen Europe in ruins and survived on a few hundred calories a day, doom is not around the corner just yet.
We can make it.
#15
TGA, Japan can prosper for many years with a declining birth rate precisely becuase it doesn't have significant immigration or emigration. In contrast Europe is losing a significant proportion of its scientists and professionals to emigration (especially from the UK) and replacing them with largely unemployable immigrants. I realize Germany has not gone as far down this path as other European countries, but I am still astonished you think this a recipe for anything other than disaster.
#16
And, the argument a declining population is somehow a serious problem that has to be fixed through immigration is nonsense. A declining population usually leads to greater material wealth and an improved quality of life (Check out Upstate New York or Tasmania). The declining workforce in relation to the retired and non-working population is easily fixed by delaying retirement.
#17
phil_b, the immigration of young skilled people is the "quick fix".
Of course fixing the economy leads to optimism and optimism leads to more kids. Creating a kid friendly environment, investing in education etc helps, too.
#18
TGA, Gotta love that perspective and optomism!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/16/2005 20:44 Comments ||
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#19
Yet another one of these tedious 'death of europe' articles based on highly selective and misleading data. Amazing that a country so in love with the idea of a self sustaining, self correcting market should produce so many journalists who fear any and all competition (the EU, China, India), alternating wildly between macho sabre rattling and sneering condemnations. Anyway to take just one example from this mess of an article
But Europe's economy is already faltering. In the 1970s annual growth for the 12 countries now using the euro averaged almost 3 percent; from 2001 to 2004 the annual average was 1.2 percent.
well perhaps so, but this merely reflects a global trend and is not solely applicable to the 12 eurozone countries. The IMFs May 2000 report 'The World Economy in the 20th Century' highlights the fact that the period 1950 to 1973 was by far the most successful of the 20th century. During that time global per capita real GDP growth was 2.9%, precisely double what its been since then; in Latin America and the caribbean per person GDP growth averaged 75% between 1960 and 1980 but fell to only 7% between 1980 and 2000, sub-saharan africa grew 34% between 1960 and 80 but fell 15% in the next 20 years, even in south east asias Tiger years average groth was half what it was in the previous 20 years.
#20
SC, it helps growth to start from a small base. Perhaps we should have another World War so we can eliminate, say, 1/3 the world'sÃÂ industrial capacity so we can get great percentage growth numbers again. Oh, and let's have the U. S. be a petroleum exporter again too. Oh, and funny how robust American and British growth have been since 1980.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
06/16/2005 20:54 Comments ||
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#21
SC, I suggest you check out some more recent data. The world economy has grown faster in the last 10 years than at any time in history. Overall economic growth is around 4.5%pa. The stand out exception has been Europe which up until 1995 was moreorless pacing world economic growth, since then it has fallen badly behind as the USA/UK/Australia have kept pace and Asia, especially China has surged ahead. This year in Europe growth will be lucky to exceed 1%. In contrast the USA and Australia will achieve at least 4%.
FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A lawyer for imprisoned American Indian activist Leonard Peltier argued Wednesday for his release, saying the federal government did not have the right to try him for crimes that occurred on a South Dakota reservation.
Peltier, 60, is serving life in prison for the killing of two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was convicted in 1977 and has filed numerous pointless, unsuccessful appeals.
Peltier's lawyer claims the sentence is illegal because the federal court had no jurisdiction on the reservation. He claims the United States only has authority to regulate interstate commerce in Indian country. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Schneider said the claim is frivolous. ``The law applies everywhere to everyone, regardless of the site,'' Schneider said.
Peltier was convicted of killing Ronald Williams and Jack Coler during a standoff on the reservation and received two consecutive life sentences. The agents were shot in the head at close range and their bodies were left on a dirt road.
Rat bastard.
His dippy, foolish anti-American socialist knucklehead pinhead Supporters have said Peltier was treated unfairly because of his political activism.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/16/2005 00:10 ||
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#1
Well, they have a helluva point. I mean killing a couple of measly Fibbies vs. being "treated unfairly". Sheesh. That's pretty clear cut. Give him his freedom! And an Appaloosa pony, too!
How pathetic and shameful, assuming those who support him have the capacity for shame. He sounds like a whining gutless jihadi. He got off easy - and he's an enduring embarrassment to native Americans for every day he draws breath. They should've fried this asshole.
#2
Every crime commited on a reservation is a Federal crime.The only people who have law enforcement authority on the Res are Tribal police and the Feds.State,county or city have no authority there.
Popcorn alert. You may also want to get a lawn chair and a refreshing beverage.
The Bush administration moved on Wednesday to confront the Republican leadership in the House by opposing a bill that would withhold half the American dues to the United Nations unless it enacted several budget and management changes. State Department officials formally conveyed the administration's opposition to withholding dues to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, one day ahead of a scheduled House vote on the measure, which is popular among conservatives. The bill, backed by the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, is considered likely to pass but its prospects are less certain in the Senate in light of outright administration opposition. The administration had previously indicated only its uneasiness with the bill's position on withholding dues, which total about $400 million a year, hoping to get the provision quietly deleted. In an interview, R. Nicholas Burns under secretary of state for political affairs, said: "We are the founder of the U.N. We're the host country of the U.N. We're the leading contributor to the U.N. We don't want to put ourselves in a position where the United States is withholding 50 percent of the American contributions to the U.N. system." Representative Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois Republican and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said that he was not surprised by the administration's opposition but that he was not persuaded. "The Constitution gives to Congress the power of the purse, and we intend to exercise it in pursuit of meaningful U.N. reform," a spokesman quoted him as saying.
Heh. UN forgot to make nicey-nice with Congress...more at the link.
#1
Representative Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois Republican and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said that he was not surprised by the administration's opposition but that he was not persuaded. "The Constitution gives to Congress the power of the purse, and we intend to exercise it in pursuit of meaningful U.N. reform," a spokesman quoted him as saying.
I guess that means moving the UN and its enviro-wankers ansd terror supporters to Paris is out of the question.
#3
"C'mon Hank, you're not following The Plan."
"Plan? What plan?"
"The Secret Rovian Plan, of course."
"Never seen it."
"That's cuz it's secret!"
"When do I get to see this Secret Plan?"
"When Bolton's approved, of course. He was gonna brief you guys."
#5
I wish they would cut funds to the UN!
Yes, I agree.
to be restored only when
You lost me. Why should my taxpayer dollars continue to be be given to countries I could care less about? Foreign aid, the UN is all a recent loopy socialist way of revenue re-distribution and I'm sick and tired of the assumption that it's always been this way and it should always stay this way. No. Individuals can give away all their money to every Third World cesspool they want, but don't assume I want my $ given away. Where was the UN when Western nations were settled and people starved due to inhospitable conditions? Where was the UN when wars were fought for independence, when people toiled day and night to make a living? Give me a frigging break. If Africans and Southeast Asians can't figure out out to raise themselves out of the backwaters of their own creation, I might add, and win their own "human rights" and build their "own future", then maybe we should let Darwin's Law proceed. The UN should be dismantled. Foreign aid should end as of yesterday.
#6
I'm not picking on you anon1, but a lot of people have drunk the koolaid pushed by the MSM and many others and can not see the UN for what it is. To use a somewhat crude analogy they are like a bunch of losers from the wrong end of town let loose with someone else credit card, and told 'don't worry, someone else will pick up the tab.' The so called reforms do not address any of the real issues with the UN. The UN is simply unreformable. It needs to be swept away and replaced by a body where democracies are represented on a weighted basis by population and economy. Non-democracies may be represented but on a lesser basis.
Democracy may not be perfect, but its the best system we have. Under a democratic system elected representatives decide and bureacrats execute. The UN has reversed that and that is why the UN as a decision making body has to go.
#9
Hear, hear, Gromgoru! Personally, I'm to the point where we cut the UN off completely, kick 'em out, withdraw all hostile countries' foreign aid and man our Southern (and probably even the Northern) border w/ military.
Posted by: BA ||
06/16/2005 7:56 Comments ||
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#10
trailing wife: Yes.
(It just depends on who is observing.)
I guess Bush really WAS concerned about the credibility of the UN during the run-walk- crawl-up to the start of action in the Iraq Theater.
#12
I don't know if this is 'good cop bad cop' (if so, the President really is a risk-taker -- I thought he simply raised the stakes high, but if not then he's gambling that we'll put up until the UN caves) or if the opposition is real ...
Thotch, maybe it's not too high a price to pay for "having an ear in the enemy's den"? :P
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/16/2005 11:02 Comments ||
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#13
Brer Rabbit: Oh, Brer Bear! Please, please don't throw me into that UN-dues-withholding briar patch.
#14
"Thotch, maybe it's not too high a price to pay for "having an ear in the enemy's den"?"
That's a belief that some people have to justify foreign aid. It sure hasn't help the US, if that is a motivating factor. Look at N.Korea, Taliban, Pakistan, Central and South America, Africa to name a few hot spots in the world re: terrorists in the making, or who grew and needed to be put down. There's lots of resentment and hatred focused on America from the very countries who benefit from our foreign aid. It's like the resentment one would feel if one was beholden to a rich aunt who tells you what to do because she feels she "owns" you. It's a lose/lose situation for both parties.
I think foreign grew out of the Marshall Plan and it does more harm than good for our nation. The poor countries get tyrants permanently installed due to foreign aid ( not just from us but from all the rich Western countries). Foreign aid has become politicized in some cases, like US foreign aid to Israel vs doing the same by Egypt, Jordan, Palestinians. Israel is now an affluent country - it should not get money from us. And if Israel needs investment, there would certainly be no shortage of private comporate investors or for that matter rich Jewish private philanthropists who would pour money into Israel. Egypt and Jordan might actually do something positive with their countries if they did not have royalty and strongmen in charge who siphon the lion's share out of foreign aid money. Not too long ago I recall reading that we were sending money to Saudi Arabia. That's probably been discontinued, but how stupid for that to have even taken place. Foreign aid is nothing more than guilt tax that our politicians take out of our pockets and merrily give to "poor" countries to make themselves feel "generous." Lots of anti-American NGO's would die out over night if we stopped UN dues and foreign aid, which in itself would be wonderful.
I think it's much more reasonable to give "aid" on an emergency basis like for the Tsunami earthquake victims but to be collecting an ongoing tithe from Western countries to give to none Westernized countries is harmful to recipients and unfair to "voiceless" taxpayers.
LOS ANGELES - A US military jet carrying four 225 kilogram (500-pound) bombs Wednesday crashed into a residential suburb in Arizona, forcing the evacuation of 1,300 homes, authorities said.
The US Marine Corps Harrier jump jet ploughed into a garden of a house in the city of Yuma, injuring one civilian on the ground, but the pilot walked away for the crash site, military spokesmen told AFP. "A Harrier crashed in residential central Yuma," Marine Corps Private First Class Robert Botkin told AFP. "The pilot ejected safely and walked away."
But the spokesman for the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma said: "They are evacuating a one-mile (1.6 kilometer) radius around the crash site as the jet was carrying live ordnance." Emergency officials from Yuma county said that 1,300 homes and a small shopping center had been evacuated as the wreckage was cleared and the bombs made safe.
The aircraft, which is capable of vertical take-offs and landings but which has had a spotty safety record, was also carrying 300 round of 20 millimeter ammunition in addition to its cargo of large bombs.
The Marine base's emergency operations center confirmed the plane was carrying ordnance and that an evacuation of residents was underway and that those displaced were being put up in a nearby high school gymnasium.
Marine Corps spokesman Major Nat Fahy said in Washington that the British designed AV-8B Harrier was on a training mission when it crashed at around 2:30 pm local time (2230) GMT. He said the pilot was taken to hospital but his condition was not immediately known and that a civilian had also been injured in the crash. "I am told it was near a residential area and there is one injury confirmed, and that civilian is on the way to the hospital as well," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/16/2005 00:04 ||
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#1
All four bombs have been recovered, according to local Yuma media.
#4
In the dawn of my years, I lived in Burbank, CA. This was the late 1950s, and there were still pilots doing training exercises out of Edwards AFB at Lancaster. One day there was a midair colision. One pilot's plane exploded, and he was killed instantly. The other pilot ejected, and came floating down into the backyard of the house right behind ours. We were prompted to go outside becasue we heard the collision. I remember my dad holding my hand in our backyard as we looked up watching him come down, and my dad talking to my mom through an open kitchen window as she was talking to the police on the phone. I heard sirens, and that is all I remember. After all I was only 4 at the time...
An Indonesian poultry worker has tested positive for bird flu, in the country's first human case of the disease that has so far killed 54 people in Southeast Asia, health officials said Thursday. The worker on the island of Sulawesi is showing no symptoms of the disease, but blood tests show he was exposed to the H5N1 strain of the disease and has produced antibodies to it, said Hariadi Wibisono, director for the eradication of diseases transmitted by animals at the health ministry. "This is the first case found," said Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Indonesia. The bird virus has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of East and Southeast Asia. Tens of millions of chickens have either died or been slaughtered, while 38 people have died in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four from Cambodia since late 2003.
#2
There are persistent rumours of bird flu in humans in China. Once a pandemic starts it will spread astonishingly quickly. Far more quickly than we can respond.
#3
hhmmmmmm - what's the price of gauze masks ? Buy!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/16/2005 19:18 Comments ||
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#4
"The worker... is showing no symptoms of the disease, but blood tests show he was exposed to the H5N1 strain of the disease and has produced antibodies to it..."
If I had a nickel for everything I have produced antibodies to...
Right now I rank this somewhere between global warming and another Kerry run in 2008.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/16/2005 19:33 Comments ||
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#5
Tom? Between chicken little and chicken shit?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/16/2005 19:53 Comments ||
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#6
BINGO!
Posted by: Tom ||
06/16/2005 20:11 Comments ||
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#7
Sorry lads, they've been expecting it since the 1980s. They know it's coming, and they know it will kill people in impressive numbers. They have been spending millions just trying to track the SOB. Even the Norks get reasonable on the subject. Right now they are watching it happen, and are powerless to stop it. Prepare for 1-1/2 to 2 years of scary.
The list of demands indicates to me this is local bandits, so I didn't put under WOT. Reclassify if necessary. Reg required. One child has been killed before dozens of others were freed during a hostage crisis at an international school in Cambodia. British, Australian and Japanese kindergarten children had been among the hostages being held by six armed men. The nationality of the dead child has not been disclosed. (Now being reported as a Canadian boy) Gunshots had been heard at the school in the northwest of the country near a popular tourist area. It is believed the hostage crisis came to an end after men stormed the minibus being used by the kidnappers to get away. It is unclear who had fired the shots.
The hostage-takers had been demanding that authorities give them money, weapons and a vehicle, the government and police said. The attackers' motives were not immediately clear. The school is in Siem Reap, a tourist area near Cambodia's famed Angkor temples and home to several expatriates. The men had taken about 70 people hostage but had later released 30, Khieu Kanharith, information minister, said. Three of the hostages had been teachers, police added.
The attackers, armed with shotguns, stormed the school about 9:30 am, demanding $1,000, six AK-47 assault rifles, six shotguns, B-40 grenade launchers, hand grenades and a car. Authorities had communicated with the hostage-takers by mobile phone. Additional: It was unclear whether the child was deliberately killed by the gunmen, or killed in an exchange of gunfire between Cambodian authorities and the hostage-takers. But Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith, quoting the deputy national police chief, said the gunmen killed the child when authorities refused to meet all of their demands. Reports about the child's age varied from two to five. He said the hostage-takers then threatened to kill the children one by one.
Around 1:30 p.m local time, police apparently agreed to some of the gunmen's demands, handing over $30,000 U.S. and a 12-seater minivan.
When the gunmen took no action, a counter-terrorism unit approached the building, and the police began shouting that they had the school surrounded. At that point, the hostage-takers said they would leave.
But when the gunmen tried to escape with some children and teachers in the van, police opened fire and rushed the vehicle, smashing its windows.
There were conflicting reports about the fate of the four hostage-takers. Some reports said two had been killed, while others said they were all arrested alive. Police said the men were criminals aged 22 to 25 from the southeastern province of Kandal.
I don't think we have to worry too much about what the Cambodians will do to these thugs.
PARIS IN JUNE OR RAMALLAH IN JUNE? HA! A TOUGH CALL!
Suha Arafat, the widow of Yasser Arafat, has been invited to visit Ramallah to identify personal items belonging to her late husband. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials want to positively identify items believed to have belonged to the late terrorist leader as preparations continue for a Ramallah museum in his memory. YES! THAT'S HIS OXYGEN HOSE! I RECOGNIZE THE GUCCI FOOTPRINT ON IT! CAN I GO THROUGH THE OLD UNIFORMS! THERE MIGHT BE SOME CHANGE IN THE POCKETS I MISSED!
If Arafat's widow does accept the invitation, it will be her first visit to the area since her husband died in a French hospital over six months ago. I'VE BEEN... BUSY! SETTING UP MY NEW...EMAIL BUSINESS VENTURES! I'M A GRIEVING WIDOW WITH A CHILD TO SUPPORT! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
Mrs. Arafat may not accept the invitation, fearing legal action by the PA since she has been accused of making off with tens of millions of dollars of PA funds, much from donor nations — that made its way to private Arafat bank accounts. JUST TRY, YOU BASTARDS! I'LL HAVE HIM DUG UP AND STUFFED AND PUT HIM IN MY OWN MUSEUM! AND CHARGE DOUBLE WHAT YOU DO! BASTARDS!
AND WHERE'S THE DAMNED KRUGGERRANDS!!
Watch out for the "crossfire"
Posted by: K. Annan ||
06/16/2005 10:27 ||
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...fearing legal action by the PA since she has been accused of making off with tens of millions of dollars of PA funds, much from donor nations â that made its way to private Arafat bank accounts.
Gotta love that part. The thieves are pissed she ripped off the boodle that the Head Thief stole.
#2
I doubt that it's "legal action" she's worried about. I suspect it's more the thought of being worked over by a team of Hamas interrogators using pliers and a rubber hose that's on her mind.
Pakistan on Wednesday lifted a travel ban on a well-known rape victim, a government spokesman said, days after her name was placed on a list of people barred from leaving the country. The decision came one day after Mukhtar Mai, 36, appealed to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to remove her name from the exit control list, a government roster of people barred from leaving the country. "Yes, I confirm that the government has deleted Mukhtar Mai's name from the ECL (exit control list), and she can travel abroad, if she wants," said Javed Akhtar, the spokesman for Aziz. He gave no other details, and the government has not said why she appeared on the list in the first place.
Why the hell do you think she was on the list?
Posted by: Fred ||
06/16/2005 00:00 ||
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Now if she'd meekly say something about wanting to attend a Conference for Penitent Pets or something, and then seek asylum somewhere in the West...
#5
Need to get her out of Pakistan ASAP, before she gets killed. I'd like to see her on Oprah, telling the truth about how the ROP treats women.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/16/2005 8:18 Comments ||
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Washington, Jun 16 (PTI) The US has invited gang-rape victim Mukhtaran Mai to visit the country after Pakistan government lifted travel restrictions imposed on the woman, whose plight has sparked off worldwide condemnation.
"She is a courageous woman who is a victim of a horrendous crime. Mai is welcome to travel to the US at any time. We have also advised Pakistani officials that she was invited to the US by a Pakistani organisation based in the US", State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said at a press briefing yesterday. He said Mai met with US Embassy officials yesterday in Islamabad.
"We have had a conversation with Mai -- our Embassy officials have. I'm not at liberty to get into the content to those discussions, but we have met with her", he said.
"We were confronted with, what I can only say, was an outrageous situation where her attackers were ordered to be freed while she had restrictions on her travel placed on her. We conveyed our views about these restrictions to the senior levels of the Pakistani Government", he said.
Asked whether Pakistan had given any explanation for Mai's reported detention over the last couple of days, McCormack said "I'm not aware of the exact content of the conversations between our Embassy and Pakistani officials and Assistant Secretary Rocca and the Pakistani Ambassador here in the United States". Pakistan yesterday lifted travel restrictions on Mai who was repeatedly raped in 2002 on the orders of a tribal jury in Meerwala town as punishment for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a rival clan. PTI
Posted by: Steve ||
06/16/2005 9:55 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A strain of bird flu infecting poultry in North Korea is different from that which killed scores of people in other parts of Asia, a UN expert has said. Hans Wagner, an official for the Food and Agriculture Organization, said the birds were infected with the H7 strain. The strain that has decimated poultry stocks and caused recent human deaths in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam is the more virulent H5N1 strain. North Korea has culled 219,000 birds to tackle the outbreak, Mr Wagner said. 
One of the most notorious murder weapons in modern history, the ice-pick that killed Leon Trotsky, appears to have been found, 65 years after it was apparently stolen from the Mexican police. The daughter of a former secret service agent claims she has the steel mountaineering instrument, which is stained with the blood of the Russian revolutionary.
The Government has admitted it has made a massive miscalculation in the cost of the Kyoto Protocol. Original estimates were that New Zealand would have a surplus of 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide credits between 2008 and 2012, worth around $450 million. Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson says new estimates put it at a deficit of 36.2 million tonnes. That will cost New Zealand $543 million, and it will have to be borne by the taxpayer. Mr Hodgson says it is largely due to huge growth in energy and industrial process emissions. He claims the Government would still have ratified Kyoto if it knew of the deficit risks. New Zealand will now have to cut its emissions, or buy carbon credits on the international market to the tune of $543 million. Mr Hodgson rejects accusations the first estimates were a gross miscalculation. He says the error is a change in assumptions, which will always be the case in energy issues.
The European Union risks "permanent crisis and paralysis" unless it can persuade member nations to adopt a constitution, the bloc's top official warned Wednesday on the eve of a crucial summit. 
An Indonesian poultry worker has tested positive for bird flu, in the country's first human case of the disease that has so far killed 54 people in Southeast Asia, health officials said Thursday. The worker on the island of Sulawesi is showing no symptoms of the disease, but blood tests show he was exposed to the H5N1 strain of the disease and has produced antibodies to it, said Hariadi Wibisono, director for the eradication of diseases transmitted by animals at the health ministry. "This is the first case found," said Dr. Georg Petersen, WHO's representative in Indonesia. The bird virus has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of East and Southeast Asia. Tens of millions of chickens have either died or been slaughtered, while 38 people have died in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four from Cambodia since late 2003.
Pakistan on Wednesday lifted a travel ban on a well-known rape victim, a government spokesman said, days after her name was placed on a list of people barred from leaving the country. The decision came one day after 
