An undemocratic decision gives Egyptian democracy a little more breating room for now

The New York Times is reporting that three of the leading candidates and seven others running for the presidency of Egypt have been ruled out by Egypt's election authorities and cannot appear on the ballots of their countrymen. This decision was not expected.

Election authorities eliminated three of the leading presidential candidates in one broad stroke on Saturday night in an unexpected decision that once again threw into disarray the contest to shape the future of Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

The ruling struck down the three most controversial candidates: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief.

Mr. Shater was ruled ineligible because of a criminal conviction at a political trial under Mr. Mubarak, the authoritarian president who ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years. Mr. Abu Ismail was disqualified because his mother was an American citizen, a violation of current Egyptian law. Elections authorities said Mr. Suleiman did not meet the signature requirement to qualify for the ballot. Of the 30,000 notarized signatures he submitted last weekend, 22,000 lacked adequate authentication or failed to meet other requirements, they said.

While these decisions appear to be based on flimsy grounds--other than for Mr. Suleiman--it is likely the case that this seemingly undemocratic decision makes it more likely that the winner will rule as a democrat.

The extreme Islamists certainly cannot be trusted to rule democratically. And a lackey for Mr. Mubarak likely would have tried to return Egypt to the status quo ante.

Yet this mass ouster from the ballot exposes the obvious: The Egyptian people who will decide who their next president is are probably not ready for democracy. When extreme Islamists and others who think fundamentalist religion belongs above all other considerations in state policy are so popular that they can win a majority of the seats in parliament and whose candidates can win the presidency, it makes clear to me that Egyptian democracy is in for a rocky ride. Ordinary Egyptians are too ignorant, too poorly educated and too poor to understand what their country really needs.

Evidence does not support the theory that the earth warmed up without rising CO2

New evidence that rising levels of carbon dioxide caused the global warming of 20,000 years ago that ended the last ice age will not change the minds of anyone who is a committed global warming skeptic.

I have come to believe that global warming skeptics are themselves exactly what they falsely accuse the 99.99% of climate scientists who agree with the consensus view of man-generated global warming theory: That is, the skeptics are driven by ideology, not science.

What the skeptics I have spoken with, read of, or heard speak all seem to think is that the thousands of climate scientists who study global warming and who in the main agree on global warming's causes and effects are driven by a radical left-wing ideology which is anti-business, anti-automobile and radically anti-modernity. The skeptics think that the climate scientists are cooking the numbers in order to shut down the coal and oil industries, to make driving a car impossibly expensive and to reverse the economic progress of the last 50 or more years just so that the environment will be purified.

That is why the evidence does not matter: It makes no difference what scientific studies find. The skeptics do not believe that these studies are science at all. The skeptics have covered their ears and closed their eyes. They are like religious zealots: They accept it as a matter of faith that the scientists are not scientists.

Yet every counter theory that the skeptics have come up with has in short order been found to be wrong. The Christian Science Monitor reports another of these:

Rising levels of carbon dioxide drove much of the global warming that thawed Earth at the end of the last ice age. That's the conclusion a team of scientists has drawn in a new study examining the factors that closed the door on the last ice age, which ended about 20,000 years ago.

The result stands in contrast to previous studies that showed temperatures rising ahead of increases in atmospheric CO2 levels. This has led some skeptics of human-triggered global warming to argue that if warming temperatures came first, CO2 wasn't an important factor then and so can't be as significant a factor today as most climate scientists calculate it to be.

The problem with the skeptics' theory is that it was based on data all from one place on earth. Global research shows that carbon dioxide levels rose before the temperatures rose:

The measurements from the previous studies were taken from ice cores extracted from thick glaciers in Antarctica. The new work supplements that data with temperature evidence from 80 locations around the globe. The results show that while temperature increases around Antarctica appear to have led increases in atmospheric CO2, the picture globally was the opposite – CO2 increases paved the way for temperature increases.

The importance of this research is that we know that we are in the middle of a period of where atmospheric CO2 has increased by 34 percent. Earth history suggests that severe global warming will come over the next few hundred years as a consequence:

The results also hold notes of caution for today, notes Jeremy Shakun, a climate researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. He notes that during the 10,000 years from the end of the last ice age to the beginning of the current “interglacial” climate, atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose 40 percent, from 180 molecules per million in the atmosphere to 260 parts per million. During the past 100 years, concentrations have risen 34 percent, from 292 ppm to 392 ppm – and continue to rise. “Clearly, it's not a small amount,” says Dr. Shakun, referring to the increases during the past century. “Rising CO2 at the end of the last ice age had a huge effect on global climate. We've raised it as much in the last century.”

Other than morons who have no scientific education, no skeptics doubt the method by which modern climate scientists measure ancient levels of carbon dioxide:

The international team, led by Shakun and Oregon State University paleoclimatologist Peter Clark, based its work on the chemical makeup of air samples contained in bubbles trapped in ice cores. Ice records from Antarctica go back some 800,000 years. But the researchers also drew temperature information from 80 locations around the globe, spanning northern and southern hemispheres. Sources to track temperature changes over time ranged from microfossils in deep-ocean sediments to pollen trapped in sediments in freshwater lakes.

So why did carbon dioxide levels rise 20,000 years ago?

The team's results show that the initial trigger for warming to end the last ice age was a periodic change in the angle of Earth's tilt and in the orientation of its axis. This brought more sunlight to warm northern latitudes. As mile-thick ice sheets covering vast areas of the northern hemisphere's continents began to melt, fresh water poured into the oceans, particularly into the North Atlantic, changing mechanisms that governed the climate.

Sea levels rose five to 10 meters within a few hundred years, and the Atlantic's deep-ocean “conveyor belt” slowed. Typically, the conveyor pulls warm surface water north from the tropics to cool, sink, and move south along the bottom as colder water. But the added fresh water from melting ice sheets slowed the conveyor, cooling the north and warming the southern ocean, which reaches Antarctica.

The warmer waters in the southern ocean reduced the extent of sea ice around the continent, leaving more surface water exposed to exchange gases with the atmosphere. Changing wind patterns from the warming increased the pace at which CO2-rich water deep in the ocean welled up and vented CO2 into the atmosphere.

In essence, where today's CO2 comes from vast reservoirs of carbon stored underground as coal, oil, and natural gas, or as methane trapped in polar permafrost, the reservoir of carbon CO2 introduced during the end of the ice age initially came from stores deep in the ocean.

An interesting note at the end of the Christian Science Monitor's story regards the first attempt, back in 1896, was made to connect CO2 rise and global warming:

Climate scientists' historical attempts to understand the processes that ended past ice ages have laid the groundwork for the current understanding of how CO2 influences the climate. As far back as 1896, Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius published a paper in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science that he hoped would help solve the climate riddle ice ages presented. The 38-page paper included painstakingly handwritten calculations – arguably the first global climate model – that estimated the climate's sensitivity to changes in CO2 levels. Remarkably, he reached a figure comparable to the one scientists today see as the most-likely value.

I wonder who the Man of the Year is?

Who knew that each Assembly district in California gets to name its own Woman of the Year?

The Dana Point Times is reporting that 73rd District Assemblywoman Diane Harkey has named Terry Rifkin (no known relation) as Harkey's district's 2012 Woman of the Year:

"It is an honor for me to be able to recognize an outstanding woman in the 73rd district every year. Terry Rifkin serves as an example to everyone on what a true volunteer is,” said Harkey. “The number of unpaid hours Terry devotes to our troops and her community is a testament to how one person can improve the lives of untold numbers of people.”

A licensed clinical social worker, Rifkin has been in private practice as a licensed psychotherapist since 1981. She is also an active member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Society for Clinical Social Work.

Sugar is killing us

If every American would stop eating products with sugar added, I suspect our health bills would fall by about 75 percent in the United States.

After experiencing some symptoms which are associated with diabetes--dry mouth, numb feet and toes, tingling hands and erratic vision--I stopped consuming all products with sugar in them about six weeks ago. I have never felt better. In three weeks, all my symptoms disappeared.

I had been suffering from severe dry mouth problems for 18 months. And then after 10 days without eating any sugar, the problem disappeared. Even with bifocals, I could no longer see clearly up close or far away. After three weeks without sugar, my vision returned to normal. For a few weeks, my extremities were tingling and numb. My toes felt like they were getting no blood. My hands ached. After 2 weeks without sugar, my hands and feet and toes are all back to normal.

It's regularly reported how fat Americans are. A small part of the reason for that is eating too many fatty foods. A much bigger reason is eating too much sugar. According to a recent 60 Minutes report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, "sugar - more than any other substance - is linked to obesity, type-2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease."

CBS News has a story online which addresses the toxic nature of excess sugar consumption and the fact that at no time in the history of humanity have more people been consuming more sugar.

The amount of sugar consumed by Americans today is unprecedented, and is contributing to heart disease and high blood pressure, a dietitian said on "CBS This Morning."

Cynthia Sass, a nutritionist and registered dietitian, was on the broadcast to discuss a "60 Minutes" report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta which explored studies indicating that sugar - more than any other substance - is linked to obesity, type-2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Sass explained that the average American today consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar a day. "In a year's time it's about 17 four-lb. bags of sugar per person per year," she told Charlie Rose. "We need to change our habits."

Scientists now believe that sugar is a toxic substance.

When asked why sugar may be considered toxic, Sass compared one's blood to a glass of water: "Now think about pouring sugar into that water. The more sugar that's there, the thicker and more syrupy that water gets.

"When that's happening in your body - in your blood - your heart has to work harder to pump that thicker fluid through your system," Sass said. "It puts stress on the heart. It puts stress on the arteries. It Increases blood pressure. It attacks the kidneys, the liver. So it's really the amount that we have that's really causing these problems."

Although sweet fruits have sugar (fructose), they are not unhealthy to eat. What scientists are talking about when calling sugar toxic, is added sugar, added honey, added high fructose corn syrup which don't naturally exist in foods.

Sass said the source of sugar is also an important consideration. "The sugar that's healthy is the kind that comes from Mother Nature - the sugar that's in fruit, that's in yogurt, that's naturally occurring," she said. "So when you think about blueberries, a cup of blueberries, that has about 7 grams of fructose, but it's bundled with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, fiber."

A can of soda, by comparison, has about 25 grams of fructose - about three times more - with no nutrients.

A public policy question worth asking is this: What, if anything, should be done about America's massive overconsumption of sugary foods?

I think we need to do something. I would start with these three ideas:

1. Place a 1 cent per gram tax on added sugar. That can of soda with 25 grams of added sugar would be taxed at 25 cents. A box of Kellogg's Honey Smacks, which has 15 grams of added sugar per serving and 9 servings per box, would be taxed at $1.35 (9 x 15). A 2,270 gram bag of sugar (5 pounds) would be taxed at $22.70. Foods with naturally occurring sugars, such as fruit, would not be taxed;

2. Educate the public on the toxicity of sugar. Take most of the money raised from the sugar tax and use it to let people realize what sugar does to their health. Any leftover money should be spent buying nutritious foods for school children; and

3. Require a prominent warning label. All processed foods with more than 5 grams of added sugar per serving need to say in large script: "The sugar in this product is toxic to your health."

Did the TSA stop a would-be terrorist in his tracks?

Reuters is reporting that a Montana man tried to board a flight at the Sacramento International Airport carrying a loaded handgun and three loaded firearms in his carry-on bags.

A Montana man was arrested after he tried to bring four loaded guns through a security checkpoint at a Sacramento, California, airport and is being held without bail, the sheriff's office said on Saturday. The suspect, Harold Waller, 45, was arrested on Thursday afternoon at Sacramento International Airport after Transportation Security Administration officers at a checkpoint found a firearm inside a carry-on bag, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

Mr. Waller had more loaded weapons in his vehicle:

Sheriff's deputies searched his car at an off-site parking lot and turned up eight more firearms, several of them loaded. The statement did not specify the types of weapons.

Waller faces a variety of charges, though none related to terrorism:

Waller faces charges including unlawful possession of a loaded firearm, unlawful possession of a concealed firearm, possession of an unauthorized weapon in a public building and possession of a firearm within a sterile area of an airport, the sheriff's department statement said.

A fair question in a case like this is would Harold Waller be treated any differently--by law enforcement or by the media--if his name were instead Hussein Walji? Would the general public make more of this case if Waller came from Morocco instead of Montana?

I am pretty sure the answer to all of those questions is yes. Is that fair? No. However, Muslims who are not terrorists and who are not in favor of jihadi activities and who don't hate the United States or other modern, liberal countries, who themselves by dint of their religious affiliation face skepticism or in some cases prejudice from non-Muslims in America, must understand that the fear of Islamism is not without cause. A not insignificant number of Muslims are Islamists. They are engaged in a violent jihad. They have committed horrific acts of terror in the United States and in many other countries around the world in the name of Islam. So as long as they continue to engage in this war against modernity, ordinary, law-abiding and harmless Muslims in the U.S. will continue to be subject to harsher scrutiny.

Pope: Communism sucks

On his way to Cuba from Mexico, the Miami Herald is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI said that the Communist system which Cuba has had since Fidel Castro grabbed power in 1959 is a failure and that government needs to change:

On Monday, Benedict will head for Cuba, and said it is "evident that Marxist ideology as it was conceived no longer responds to reality," and he urged Cubans to "find new models, with patience, and in a constructive way."

The fact that Communism stinks is not news to anyone in Cuba or anyone who has ever stepped foot in a country ruled by Marxists. But when a pope states the obvious it carries more weight. We all know that the Castro is nude: But it is nonetheless surprising to hear the pope declare out loud that the Castro has no clothes.

The comment about Marxism, in response to questions from a journalist, was as blunt as anything his predecessor, John Paul II, made during his groundbreaking 1998 trip to Cuba, though the earlier pope is widely credited with helping bring down socialism in eastern Europe.

The pope has not yet called for any immediate changes in Cuban governance:

Benedict cautioned that "this process requires patience and also decisiveness."

Asked about reports that dissidents in Cuba are still routinely harassed and arrested, including in the weeks leading up to his visit, Benedict said that the church wants "to help in the spirit of dialogue to avoid trauma and to help bring about a just and fraternal society, as we want in the whole world."

"We want to collaborate in this sense, and it's obvious that the church is always on the side of freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion," the pope said.

The Cuban government sidestepped the pope's condemnation of the ideology that has turned Cuba from the best country in Latin America into one of the worst off:

Asked about Benedict's statement, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the government respects all opinions. "We consider the exchange of ideas to be useful. Our people have deep convictions developed over the course of our history," he said, adding that the Cuban system "is a democratic social project ... which is constantly perfecting itself."

Fortunately, the French police shot him dead

The New York Times is reporting that the anti-Semitic Islamist murderer, Mohammed Merah, who assassinated a rabbi, his two children and another little girl at a Jewish school (the victims are pictured above), was killed in a shootout by French police in Toulouse, France, after a standoff which lasted more than 30 hours.

A 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed responsibility for killing four men and three children was shot dead on Thursday after security forces stormed the apartment where he had been holed up for more than 30 hours, French officials said.

François Molins, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, said the man, Mohammed Merah, was struck in the head by a bullet. Mr. Merah was found dead on the ground after jumping out a low window, according to Interior Minister Claude Guéant. He was still firing a Colt .45.

Just before noon, officers entered the apartment through a front door and windows that had been blasted out, according to Mr. Guéant. They searched each room using video equipment, coming finally to the bathroom, Mr. Guéant said. As the police began to inspect it with the cameras, Mr. Merah emerged from a bathroom “firing with extreme violence,” Mr. Guéant said.

“At the end, Mohammed Merah jumped out a window with a weapon in his hand, still firing,” he said. “He was found dead on the ground.”

Clearly, with its large Muslim population, France needs to do a much better job monitoring those who are violent extremists. The United States had put this anti-Semite on its "no-fly list," due to his affiliation with al-Qaeda.

In a televised address shortly after the operation, President Nicolas Sarkozy praised the work of French security forces and said the he would seek changes in the law to criminalize travel abroad by French citizens for training or “indoctrination” by terror groups. Mr. Sarkozy also indicated plans to criminalize the viewing of Web sites that “applaud terrorism.”

Any young Muslim male who is not Pakistani but travels back and forth to Pakistan should be watched closely.

A former garage mechanic, Mr. Merah made two trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years, and said that he had been trained by Al Qaeda in South Waziristan. On Thursday, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry categorically denied that claim.

But a senior commander for the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan claimed that many French citizens were that area to train with Al Qaeda. Responding to a message seeking comment, the commander responded: “There have been more than 80 French nationals working in different areas of Waziristan, mainly in North Waziristan’s Mirali and Miranshah. Five of them left from here in January 2012.”

It turns out radical violence runs in this family:

The authorities said they initially suspected both Mr. Merah and his brother Abdelkader, 29, who was known locally for his radical religious ideology and had been detained for questioning outside Toulouse on Monday.

Explosives were found in Abdelkader’s car on Wednesday, the police said, and Mr. Merah was tracked in part because his mother’s computer had been used to make contact with his first victim, a French soldier selling a motorbike online, whom Mr. Merah says he killed on March 11.

The usual comments that Islam is a peaceful religion have been made by various leaders in France. That is not really the question. The issue is the culture of extremism in Muslim countries and in Muslim communities in Europe and elsewhere. Muslims need to step up and stamp out the extremists their culture produces.

Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, who also met with Mr. Sarkozy, said, “These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion.” And the head of the Grand Mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, urged France not to stigmatize Muslims, saying “99.9 percent” are law-abiding and loyal citizens.

If 99.9 percent are decent people, then they need to keep an eye on the other 0.1 percent and report them to the police.

At this point, I am mostly thankful that the mass murderer is dead. I don't trust our own judicial system to properly deal with a son of a bitch like Mr. Merah. I trust a European court even less. I can imagine if he had been convicted and sent to prison, the same folks who idolize the Philadephia cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal (aka Wesley Cook) would start calling for the release of Mohammed Merah, under the pretense that he is a political prisoner. Many of them would blame Israel for Merah's "mistreatment." To avoid all that I think the French police did the world a great favor in shooting the bastard in the head.

Is the cure to baldness finally coming?

BBC News is reporting that the protein which triggers hair loss in men has been discovered by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the story suggests that this research could lead to the development of a cream to treat baldness:

A biological clue to male baldness has been discovered, raising the prospect of a treatment to stop or even reverse thinning hair. In studies of bald men and laboratory mice, US scientists pinpointed a protein that triggers hair loss. Drugs that target the pathway are already in development, they report in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The research could lead to a cream to treat baldness.

The guilty part is a protein called prostaglandin D synthase:

Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have analysed which genes are switched on when men start to go bald. They found levels of a key protein called prostaglandin D synthase are elevated in the cells of hair follicles located in bald patches on the scalp, but not in hairy areas. Mice bred to have high levels of the protein went completely bald, while transplanted human hairs stopped growing when given the protein.

Finding a cure will take some time. Prof George Cotsarelis, of the department of dermatology said:

"The next step would be to screen for compounds that affect this receptor and to also find out whether blocking that receptor would reverse balding or just prevent balding - a question that would take a while to figure out."

The researchers say there is potential for developing a treatment that can be applied to the scalp to prevent baldness and possibly help hair regrow.

Why did this maniac target Jewish people?

EDIT: March 21, 12:02 AM--There are news reports suggesting that the lead suspect is of Algerian heritage and is a member of al-Qaeda. As I type this, the French police have him cornered in a multi-family house near the Jewish school in Toulouse and they are trying to negotiate his surrender.

CBSnews.com is reporting that a gunman on a motorcycle took aim at Jews in Toulouse, France, killing a rabbi, two of his children and the 10-year-old daughter of the director of the Jewish school where the murders took place.

CBS/AP) TOULOUSE, France - The shooting deaths of four people, including three children, by a gunman outside a Jewish school in the French city of Toulouse has been linked to two deadly attacks in the same region last week that killed three French paratroopers and left another seriously injured. Investigators said Monday that forensic tests have shown the same weapon was used in all three attacks. The motive is unclear, but the targets all have been ethnic minorities.

A 30-year-old rabbi and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons were killed in Monday's attack, just before classes started at the Ozar Hatorah school, a junior high and high school in a quiet residential neighborhood, Toulouse Prosecutor Michel Valet said. Witnesses said the man worked at the school. Police identified the fourth victim as the 10-year-old daughter of the school director. A 17-year-old was critically injured.

Based on what has been reported, my guess is that the killer is not part of al-Qaeda or another Muslim terrorist group and probably is not a Muslim, despite the extreme anti-Semitism of the Muslims of France.

My guess is that when this murderer is caught, we will discover that he is more of a psychotic than he is political. He probably suffers from paranoid delusions.

Yet I cannot help but think that, if that is correct, he has been influenced by the everyday hatred of Israel voiced in French political discourse and to lesser or greater extent elsewhere among the European left. We see this hatred of Israel in the American left, as well. However, it is more than counter-balanced by the American right and center. On the whole, Americans tend to like the one, free, democratic state in the Middle East, whose culture is similar to our own. By contrast, Europe in the main has for the last 45 years--since the Six Day War--sided with the fascist police states which surround Israel. The large European left has excused the horrible, violent behavior of the Palestinians. They have equated Jews defending themselves from terrorists with Apartheid in South Africa. In the face of widespread anti-Semitism, the left has branded Jews as racists and oppressors.

That context, those lies, this culture has created a climate in France which, I suspect, made this lone psychotic think murdering Jewish children and a rabbi was the right thing to do.

Is it time to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans? Yes, it's long past time.

In a forceful commentary published by the National Review Online, Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, concludes that our war in Afghanistan is a waste of our time, a waste of our money and a waste of our soldiers.

"Our troops should be out of Afghanistan. Yesterday."

Over a March 4, 2009 Davis Enterprise column I wrote, my editor penned this familiar sounding headline:

"Get out of Afghanistan, now."

I suspect Mr. McCarthy would have agreed with my conclusion three years ago.

My criticism in 2009 was focused on the need for the war at all and the idea, which came to fruition, that we needed to expand our efforts in Afghanistan. McCarthy says much the same thing here about the decade long growth of this war:

... 90,000 American troops are now stationed (in Afghanistan), compared with the 5,200 who conclusively routed al-Qaeda a decade ago, which you may recall as the mission they were sent to accomplish.

McCarthy points out how unreliable, still, the people we are supposedly trying to help are:

... our “partners” have turned their guns on scores of our troops in the last five years, killing 70, wounding many more. Those are just the U.S. casualty figures. British forces and other NATO personnel are also being assassinated with regularity.

McCarthy likens our failed nation-building efforts in Afghanistan to the same efforts in Iraq, and he points out the price we have paid trying:

We were sold a “freedom agenda” bill of goods about creating a stable democracy that would be a reliable American counterterrorism ally (in Baghdad). What we actually purchased, at a cost of over 4,000 lives, over 30,000 wounded, and over $700 billion, is a sharia state beholden to Iran. The new Iraq calls for Arab solidarity against Israel amid pro-Hamas demonstrations. Its specialty is the persecution of Christians and homosexuals.

The great mistake of the entire Afghan War has been the change in our mission from destroying al-Qaeda to bringing freedom to the Afghan people:

We did not send our troops to liberate Afghanistan. We sent them to rout al-Qaeda, which they did with spectacular speed and effectiveness. There is nothing in the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) about liberating anyone.

In my 2009 column, I wrote much the same thing:

What we didn't need to do after our "victory" was engage in a nation-building exercise, trying to impose a democratic republic on a disparate collection of medieval clans who collectively are called Afghans, but have no national allegiance to that state.

In blunt language, McCarthy explains just why Afghans cannot be made into Danes:

In the main, the Afghans are Muslims in the thrall of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist Islam of Saudi Arabia. As such, they cannot be liberated — they have chosen their own tyranny.

What greatly angers Mr. McCarthy is that our war efforts in fighting against the Taliban are hampered by our efforts to not harm ordinary Afghans:

The only reason for our troops to be in a barbaric country is to vanquish the barbarians. Obviously, we are not trying to do that in Afghanistan.

If we leave Afghanistan, that does not mean we will give up fighting against al-Qaeda:

In Yemen, where there are no U.S. troops on the ground, Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal reports that our government killed dozens of al-Qaeda operatives by air strikes in just the last week. In Pakistan, where there are no U.S. troops on the ground, the Obama administration has stepped up the Bush-era pace of drone attacks, killing numerous jihadists. The name of the game with terrorists is to deny them safe haven to train and plot. As retired general Paul Vallely has been arguing for years, our troops have so damaged al-Qaeda at this point that, without committing massive ground forces in hostile Islamic countries, we can strike the enemy from “Lily Pads” — established land or seaborne bases in safe areas.

This is how I concluded my 2009 column:

We need to be prudent with our money and our soldiers. Pouring billions of dollars more into transforming Afghanistan and ceaselessly fighting the Taliban is a waste of lives, treasure and ultimately the Obama presidency. The time to get out is now.

We now know what has been killing the bees: neonicotinoids

About 6 or 7 years ago, the news was full of stories about honeybees disappearing. Large colonies of bees which were critical to commercial agriculture were suddenly and mysteriously dying off or just not showing up when they were needed for pollination. A story from UPI today seems to have the answer:

Die-offs of honeybees critical for pollinating food crops -- part of so-called colony collapse disorder -- is linked to an insecticide, a U.S. journal reports.

Researchers from the University of Padua in Italy writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology say the springtime die-offs have been linked to technology used to plant corn coated with insecticides.

In some parts of Europe where farmers use the technology to plant seeds coated with so-called neonicotinoid insecticides, widespread deaths of honeybees have been reported since the introduction of the technique in the late 1990s, they said.

Apparently, it was no coincidence that once these neonicotinoid insecticides were introduced, the bee die offs began. This class of insecticide was introduced about 15 years ago and that is when the colongy collapses were first noticed, though the numbers were not large until about 2005, when corn farmers all over the world had begun using neonicotinoids.

Such insecticides are among the most widely used in the world, popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but have lower toxicity for other animals.

Scientists said they suspected the bee die-offs might be due to particles of the insecticide made airborne by the pneumatic drilling machines used for planting that forcefully suck seeds in and expel a burst of air containing high concentrations of particles of the insecticide coating.

They found that honeybees that flew through the emission cloud of the seeding machines used in mid-March to May corn planting were dying.

While this neonicotinoid study is all news to me, it appears that scientists and some politicians have known this connection to bee die-offs for a few years. A 2010 story called "'Nicotine Bees' Population Restored With Neonicotinoids Ban" from a website called treehugger.com says France, Germany and Italy banned neonicotinoid insecticides due to their effects on bees:

Following France and Germany, last year the Italian Agriculture Ministry suspended the use of a class of pesticides, nicotine-based neonicotinoids, as a "precautionary measure." The compelling results - restored bee populations - prompted the government to uphold the ban.

A documentary film called 'Nicotine Bees' explains the connection between the growth of neonicotinoids and the extermination off honeybees called Colony Collapse Disorder. Here is the trailer for the movie:

Is Saudi Arabia arming the Syrian rebels?

The Jerusalem Post, borrowing from the Agence France-Presse, is reporting that Saudi Arabia has shipped weapons to Jordan which are destined for the Free Syrian Army, the group trying to overthrow the Ba'athist regime in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia is arming Syrian rebels locked in a year-long rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a senior Arab diplomat told AFP Saturday.

Calling the shipments an effort to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the diplomat clarified that "Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the the Free Syrian Army," according to the report.

I speculated in my column last month that this could happen and it could be a game-changer in Syria:

A wildcard in this might be Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Neither will use violence to overthrow the Ba’athist regime. But those regional powers could start arming and training the rebel forces, if we don’t stop them.

Another development reported in the Jersusalem Post story is that the Iraqi government has promised to no longer permit Iranian planes to fly over Iraq en route to Syria, where they are delivering weapons to Mr. al-Assad. I would guess that it's hard to deny all airspace or other routes for Iran to unload its weaponry, but it sounds like this could make it a little tougher for the Iranians:

Also Saturday, an Iraqi government spokesman said his country would not permit Iran to ferry arms to Syria through or over its territory, AFP reported. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iranian ambassador was told "Iraq will not permit the use of its air space or its territory for the transit of any arms cargo to Syria," according to the report.

Emails confirm Iran's role in Assad regime's massacres of the Syrian people

The Guardian of London is reporting that "a cache of what appear to be several thousand emails received and sent by the Syrian leader (Bashar al-Assad) and his wife" were "intercepted by members of the opposition Supreme Council of the Revolution group between June (2011) and early February (2012)."

The Guardian was given the entire lot of emails and the newspaper "made extensive efforts to authenticate the emails by checking their contents against established facts and contacting 10 individuals whose correspondence appears in the cache. These checks suggest the messages are genuine, but it has not been possible to verify every one."

Among the revelations is the role of Iran in advising Mr. Assad:

The emails appear to show that Assad received advice from Iran or its proxies on several occasions during the crisis. Before a speech in December his media consultant prepared a long list of themes, reporting that the advice was based on "consultations with a good number of people in addition to the media and political adviser for the Iranian ambassador".

The memo advised the president to use "powerful and violent" language and to show appreciation for support from "friendly states". It also advised that the regime should "leak more information related to our military capability" to convince the public that it could withstand a military challenge.

The emails "appear to show the president's wife spending thousands of dollars over the internet for designer goods while he swaps entertaining internet links on his iPad and downloads music from iTunes."

As the world watched in horror at the brutal suppression of protests across the country and many Syrians faced food shortages and other hardships, Mrs Assad spent more than £10,000 on candlesticks, tables and chandeliers from Paris and instructed an aide to order a fondue set from Amazon.

Some interesting revelations contained in the emails:

• A daughter of the emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani, this year advised Mr and Mrs Assad to leave Syria and suggested Doha may offer them exile.

• Assad sidestepped extensive US sanctions against him by using a third party with a US address to make purchases of music and apps from Apple's iTunes.

• A Dubai-based company, al-Shahba, with a registered office in London is a key conduit for Syrian government business and private purchases of Mrs Assad.

After the Anonymous hacker group was caught breaking into various Syrian government email addresses, the Assad email account went silent:

The access continued until 7 February, when a threatening email arrived in the inbox thought to be used by Assad after the account's existence was revealed when the Anonymous group separately hacked into a number of Syrian government email addresses. Correspondence to and from the two addresses ceased on the same day.

Get away from the coast while you can?

An academic study published today by the Institute of Physics (*see my footnote below) called "Modelling sea-level rise impacts on storm surges along US coasts" suggests that rising ocean waters due to global warming is going to be a serious threat to most Americans who live near the sea.

This comes from the paper's abstract:

We find that substantial changes in the frequency of what are now considered extreme water levels may occur even at locations with relatively slow local sea-level rise, when the difference in height between presently common and rare water levels is small. We estimate that, by mid-century, some locations may experience high water levels annually that would qualify today as 'century' (i.e., having a chance of occurrence of 1% annually) extremes. Today's century levels become 'decade' (having a chance of 10% annually) or more frequent events at about a third of the study gauges, and the majority of locations see substantially higher frequency of previously rare storm-driven water heights in the future. These results add support to the need for policy approaches that consider the non-stationarity of extreme events when evaluating risks of adverse climate impacts.

Here are some excerpts from the conclusion of this research:

Through this study we are able to offer a picture of likely changes in the return levels and periods of coastal storm surges in the next decades that, depending on the location, may significantly alter risk assessment related to high water levels and should be considered a relevant result for stakeholders and policy makers involved in coastal infrastructure or environmental protection decisions. Pacific coast locations are most in danger of seeing their historical extremes frequently surpassed in the coming few decades, followed by the Atlantic. Gulf locations appear in least danger of a rapid shift, despite rapid relative sea-level rise, due to the high amplitudes of historical storm extremes, which render the relative effect of sea-level rise small.

This conclusion quotes research which suggests more and worse hurricanes will hit the Gulf coast:

The greater near term risk in the Gulf (as in a large portion of the Atlantic coast) is however the possibility of increasing cyclone intensity (Knutson et al 2010), concerns we do not address here. Our work provides further evidence that conducting risk assessments of coastal flood hazards must account for non-stationary behaviour, driven mainly by rising mean sea-level.

I once spoke with a climate scientist from UC Davis about sea-level rise due to global warming. I was curious how melting polar ice would have that much of an effect on the vast oceans. He explained that melting ice is only a small fraction of the problem. The real issue is due to the fact that warm water takes up more physical space than cold water. This quote is from science.org: "A warmer world will have a higher sea=level because as the land and lower atmosphere of the world warm, heat is transferred into the oceans. When materials are heated they expand (thermal expansion). So the heat that is transferred causes sea water to expand, which then results in a rise in sea-level.:
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*Here is what the IOP says about itself: "The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society promoting physics and bringing physicists together for the benefit of all.

"It has a worldwide membership of around 40 000 comprising physicists from all sectors, as well as those with an interest in physics. It works to advance physics research, application and education; and engages with policy makers and the public to develop awareness and understanding of physics. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in professional scientific communications."

Here is what Wikipedia says about the IOP: "The present day Institute of Physics was formed in 1960 from the merger of the Physical Society of London, founded in 1874, and the Institute of Physics, founded in 1920.

"It is the main professional body for physicists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and grants the professional qualification of Chartered Physicist (CPhys), as well as Chartered Engineer (CEng) as a nominated body of the Engineering Council.

"In addition to this, the IOP provides services to its members including careers advice and professional development. As a part of its mission, the IOP works to engage the public with physics and runs the physics.org website, an online guide to physics, and a blog.

"The IOP is prominent in its work in policy and advocacy, lobbying for stronger support for physics in education, research and industry in the UK.

"The IOP's publishing company, IOP Publishing, publishes more than 60 academic titles."

How is it I have never heard of the Santa Susana nuclear accident?

I came across a report published yesterday--on a website called HealthyCal.org, which I know nothing about other than it is edited by Daniel Weintraub, who used to be a great opinion columnist for the Sacramento Bee--that says, "The 1959 partial nuclear meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory ranks as the third worst nuclear accident ever, releasing up to 100 times more radioactive iodine into the atmosphere than at Three Mile Island."

How is it I have never heard of the Santa Susana nuclear accident?

My next question was where is this place? According to Wikipedia, it's near Canoga Park, Simi Valley and Bell Canyon. (A friend of mine from college and his wife grew up in this very area. Their wedding reception was held at her parents' home in Bell Canyon.) Here is what Wikipedia says about Santa Susana:

The site is located approximately 7 miles northwest from the community of Canoga Park and approximately 30 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Sage Ranch Park is adjacent on part of the northern boundary and the community of Bell Canyon along the entire southern boundary.

Although the meltdown took place almost 53 years ago, it is still polluted with radiation:

More than half a century after a partial nuclear meltdown near Los Angeles, a federal study has found ground radiation levels nearly 1,000 times higher than agreed-upon standards for mandatory cleanup.

Up until 2010, the cleanup efforts at the site of the accident have failed.

In a survey of land around the former reactor site, the U.S. Environmental Protection agency found radioactive cesium, strontium, cobalt and plutonium at levels exceeding the cutoff requiring remediation, agency records show.

As often happens with these things, the standard for what is safe has changed and become stricter over the years:

The current agreement between NASA, DOE and the state Office of Toxic Substances Control seeks to return Santa Susana to a cesium background level of 0.0207 picocuries. A picocurie is one-trillionth of a curie — a standard measure of radioactivity. At one hotspot, the EPA found cesium 137 at 198 picocuries per gram. In other words, the intensity of cesium radiation at that particular location is almost 1,000 times the level that would trigger mandatory remediation.

One possible reason I had never heard of the Santa Susana accident is because it was kept secret for a long time:

The accident in the rugged Simi hills between Los Angeles and Ventura County on July 14, 1959 remained largely unknown for 20 years, until a group of UCLA students discovered and publicized records of the release. Further research revealed additional radioactivity releases as well as contamination by carcinogenic dioxins and heavy metals from other experiments at Santa Susana. That led to decades of agitation by environmental activists and a series of failed cleanup efforts before the 2010 agreement.

A current legal question is who is responsible to cleanup the site: the property owner, Boeing? Or the state of California?

Boeing Co. owns most of the 2,850-acre site, and, unlike NASA and DOE, has not signed on to the cleanup agreement with state regulators. Last April, a federal judge overturned a state law that would have made the company responsible to California officials for a cleanup. The state is appealing the ruling.

Boeing objects to the current plan, because it is much more stringent than a 2007 agreement:

Kamara Sams, a company spokeswoman, said Boeing remains committed to cleaning its property under a 2007 consent order that would forbid contamination above levels typical of a residential suburban neighborhood. She noted that that standard is more stringent than would be normally required for the site’s future use as open space.

Notwithstanding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster one year ago, I am sure that nuclear power is much safer today than it was in the 1950s or even the 1970s. Even though we--in the United States--have not really solved the problem of what to do with nuclear waste, I am generally in support of generating more of our electricity from new nuclear power plants. I don't think the takeaway from Santa Susana should be that nuclear is bad. I think the takeaway should be that we need regulations to prevent that sort of accident from happening; and if an accident occurs, we need to have a good plan in place ahead of time for how to minimize the damage.

From a carbon-effluent standpoint, nuclear power is an attractive option. However, a big obstacle for nuclear in the U.S. is how extremely expensive it is to build and operate a plant. Companies like PG&E and other power producers, given the choice between nuclear and natural gas, will pick gas every time. Based on what engineers at UC Davis have told me, it costs about half as much today to produce a megawatt of electricity using gas than it does using nuclear. Until that ratio changes, I don't expect anyone to propose a new nuclear power plant in California.