Trotskyite view of Fahrenheit 9/11.

Ray Bradbury(1920-), the writer of Fahrenheit 451(1953)
whines about the name of the movie. Which is quite
unnecessary outburst from the grand old man, as
David Langford points out.

All great artists steal. And usually more than
part of the name of their work.

A rare incident: state terrorism conviction in Qatar. The
face of the New Russia is just a mask that hides the good
old CCCP. One could say that what Vladimir Putin wants to
create in Russia is the old Soviet Union without communism.

Bush doctrine about democracy in Middle East and
the denial of both history and current reality.

Court orders changes to West Bank wall.

Little sanity remains in Israel - but even the Supreme Court lacks courage to declare that Israel has only a right to build a wall on the green line, not an inch to the east from it.

Granddaughter Louise continues the Leakey dynasty.

Putting a face and form to early humans is both science and art.

Bush Says Iraq Should Be Example for Rest of Middle East.

Those of you who claim that George W. Bush isn´t a stupid idiot
- wouldn´t it be time for you to listen to what the man himself
is saying, and not what his apologists are saying?

Current Iraq a model for the rest of the Middle East?
I can´t stop laughing.

And still there are people who believe him. Even outside the US.

Escape from Baghdad.

Instead of speaking about crushing the insurgents,
which they will not likely to succeed in, the new
"leaders" of Iraq probably would be better to
declare a general amnesty for all who have fight
against the occupation. It would be practical,
and even if it would have no effect on the leaders
and small number of foreign fighters, it probably
could have an effect on the average Iraqi fighter.
Patriotic rhetoric and taking distance from the
Americans would help also. If the new "leaders" of
Iraq want to be more than puppets whose position is
based on the foreign troops occupying their country.

Satellites map volcanic home of Africa’s endangered gorillas.

Rice yields decline by 15 percent for every one degree
Celsius increase in the mean daily temperature. And as
global warming will increase the mean temperature by
at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (and more likely by several
degrees more), then the future looks bleak.

Tales of mystery from the ringed planet.

Iraqis have lived this lie before.

Imperial Amnesia.

Well, it has been said often that the people who make history and
the people who read history are different people. But a more
correct claim would probably be that some people just don´t learn
from history. Or that they just end choosing wrong examples for their
own adventures. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, are keen to fight
the World War II over and over again.

Even today, in my home country those who support Israel
use very often this question against those who critize
Israel´s actions:"Haven´t the Jews suffered enough?"

To them all actions of Israel are justified on the
basis of the history of the Jews. The state of Israel
and it´s representatives can´t do nothing wrong,
because the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. The 4400
Palestinians who have died since the beginning of the
first intifada don´t matter, because people who were
murdered 60 years ago matter more.

The people who think that this question will silence all
critics of Israel will often weep when they see pictures
from the concentration camps. But if they see a child who
have been shot dead by teenage Israeli soldier, they show
no emotion. They may claim that it is regrettable, but will
certainly utter something like this: "Israel must protect
itself!" Like the Germans were "protecting" themselves from
Jews, Gypsies and all the rest of their victims.

Up until 1980s Israel was of course a wonderland to
many leftwing and liberal Europeans. A case of bad
conscience, which overwhelmed reason. Same persons
could rage (rightfully) against the apartheid states
of South Africa and Rhodesia, while praising Israel.

Helping Israel on a False and Dangerous Course.

Why do the Americans so fervently support Israel? One,
they know very little of the facts on Palestine. And
what they know is usually filtered through the US
mainstream media, which can´t be blamed to be too
informative or too objective on the world outside the
borders of the US. Because of this, they don´t understand
the nature of the struggle in Palestine, they can´t
place it in the right context nor can they really
understand how far-reaching it´s consequences are.

Secondly, they view Jews through the Holocaust and
the Bible. Jews are eternal victims to the Americans, and
so Palestinians can´t be victims (after all, the Americans
live in a black-and-white world, to the huge majority of
them there can be only two opposite sides, good and evil,
and nothing in between.) So the Palestinians must be the
bad guys, no matter what the Israelis do.

I find it very odd that the even relatively sane Americans
somehow believe that Palestinians must do all the
concessions, that Israelis don´t have to make any. They
just don´t seem to understand the facts. Probably they just
don´t want to accept them and instead paint time after
time a rosy picture of the "democratic, little Israel, the
home of the survivors of Holocaust, fighting bravely against
the cruel Arabs, who want to kill all Jews." Black-and-white.
Manicheaism is really the state religion of US.

What we have in Palestine is a colonial conflict where
the foreign-born colonialists try to subdue and force
into reservations or abroad the native people. Jews have
just been more succesful than most European colonialists.
And this is what Israel is: a bastion of European
colonialism (even if the European Jews are now a
minority, Israel is still their creation). A relic.

But to the Americans, Israel is a biblical Utopia, which
brings a happy ending to the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Meaning of Iraq Handover Still Elusive.

Polls: U.S. Skeptical; Iraqis Pessimistic.

The so-called leaders of so-called "sovereign" Iraq
were to be loyals puppets of US. The choosing of a
new interim president and prime minister showed that
they had gotten at least partly free from the leash
of the Americans. The question now is that how much
power they can take from themselves from their American
overseers still left in place?

One can wonder how much need a man like Iyad Allawi,
who has pretty much no public support, sees for an
election when January comes? One wouldn´t be making
huge gamble by claiming that they will be postponed.
And I wouldn´t be surprised if there will be no
elections held this time in 2005. One day elections
will be held, but the current pack of Iraqi so-called
leaders will need a rigged election in the Baathist
style to stay in power and I don´t think that they
have seen this much trouble to gain power only to give
it up to somebody else. The Shia are an exception to
this, because of their huge numbers. Their parties
can win a free election. The question is, would they
afterwards see any sense in new, free elections?

Could laptops run on spinach?

Making Torture Legal.

In the last hundred years or so the powers of the US
president have been growing compared to that of the
US congress. In the late 19th century the congress
wielded a much larger part of the power and the president
was a far weaker figure than he later came to be. In this
light, the claims made by the US government lawyers
on the powers of the US president can be seen not as
an aberration, but a part of a longer historical
development, where the power of the president increases
when compared to congress. This is the pinnacle of it
- for now. It´s hard to see that the US congress would
be ready or capable to claim back it´s larger role and
drive the president back to his traditional part of the
field of the government. One reason to this is of course
that the US politics have become character driven, not
as much about politics as about persons.

US&vassals transfer power to Iraqi quislings without
giving them power over much about anything.

And it seems that the crusaders have dealt to themselves
a nice chunk of money from Iraqi oil revenues. More.

The Coalitian Provisional Authority byrocrats should be
all of the conservative branch, but at least what comes
to other people´s - and other nations - money, they are
very liberal in their use of it.

First Sweden lost on penalties to Holland - a minor
miracle, by the way, as the Dutch are experts on
losing penalties, having lost penalty shootouts in
all three of the last European Championships - and
now the Czechs sent the Danes back home with a solid
3-0(0-0) victory that is a bit cruel toward the Danes;
they didn´t really earn this big a defeat.

Bosnia Marks Austrian Archduke's Death.

Otto von Habsburg(-Lothringen), born in 1912, is the
son, not the grandson, of the last ruler of Austro-Hungarian
empire, Charles I(1887-1922).

More insanity from Niall Ferguson.

Couple of years of imprisonment, constant abuse and
occasional torture would make wonders for his worldview.

Every regime has these kind of "independent" supporters
who whitewash the regime´s crimes. Usually they are delusional
people whose view of the regime has little to do with it´s
reality; they attach to it their own hopes and dreams, which
usually have little to do with the regime´s reality and the
goals of it´s leaders.

One could say that Niall Ferguson is a modern, academic
version of Ezra Pound(1885-1972). Niall Ferguson´s United
States of America has as much to do with reality that
Ezra Pound´s Italy had with the real one.

Sometimes history has to be re-written.

The moon from the cold.

Phoebe is a stray wanderer from the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.

Iraq Violence Takes Toll on Civilians.

Best picture of Titan´s surface so far, from Cassini.

France became the latest giant to crash out from
the tournament. And they certainly deserved it. They
played lazily. Their game lacked quality. They went
along with Greece´s tactic and Greece won. The goal
was great and that´s it. The better side won.

In Otto Rehhagel´s first game as the manager of Greece, our
team beat them 5-1. And they are now in the Euro semifinals.

First hibernating primate, a lemur species from Madagascar.
Considering the current situation of lemurs in Madagascar,
whose forests are pretty much gone, these species is quite
likely extinct in a time of few decades. Not that he humans
are doing terribly well in Madagascar either. Loss of forests
because of logging has lead to severe erosion, loss of arable
land and etc.

According to Colin Powell, the US has a "problem" in Iraq. Really?

Little Englishmen are whining that Sol Campbell´s
disallowed goal in the dying minutes of normal game time
should have been allowed, because he didn´t obstruct
in any way goalkeeper Ricardo. Yes, he didn´t, but
John Terry did, wrestling the keeper down. More.
More.

In the English lower leagues that goal could have been
allowed, about 50% of the time. But that´s another thing.

Germany went down against Czech B team - and now England
loses once again on penalties... Portugal was good -
totally different display from them to compared to the
previous ones. Even in the game against Spain they were
clearly inferior compared to this game.

Luis Figo may have played his last game for Portugal -
at least in this tournament. Could there be a more
dramatic change of generation than this? For Figo´s
shame he didn´t went to the bench, but left the field
and headed straight to the dressing room. And then Helder
Postiga scored. The aging diva had made his greatest blunder.

Hubble (possibly) spots neighbors hidden in the Milky Way.

92 dead in Caucasus, 92 dead in Iraq. Maybe the
neo-imperialists will start eventually to understand
that they are fighting wars that they can´t win.

Italians paranoid over exit.

At last the Bulgarians showed that they can play decent
football - and can blaim only their own strikers for
their defeat, as they really should have scored just
before Antonio Cassano made it 2-1.

The game against Denmark was the worst in the tournament
for the lucky Swedes, who will face probably Germany
in the quarterfinals. One way or another, one team I
dislike will be eliminated. It´s a consolation for the
fact the either one of them - if Latvia or the Czech B
team will not cook up a surprise - will be in the semifinals.

Apartheid and ethnic cleansing have the support of
the majority of Israeli Jews. Their succesful program
to mould themselves into the image of their former
oppressors continues.

Bad news about the MARSIS radar on Mars Express.

Afghan detainees routinely tortured and humiliated by US troops.

At least three were murdered.

Lawyer: Red Cross documents show Saddam abuse.

Hopefully this isn´t true, but it wouldn´t be a surprise
for the idiotic Americans to make Saddam Hussein a victim.
They didn´t abuse the captured Nazi leaders, so they should
be able to leave Saddam Hussein unabused also.

Of course, the Nazi leaders were fellow Christians,
fellow members of the German race...

Should Israel leave the West Bank?
In his latest book, author and journalist Richard Ben Cramer claims that the Jewish state is losing its soul by continuing to occupy the lands conquered in the Six Day War. Here's an excerpt.

Countries don´t have souls. The question is, what kind of
people citizens of any country want to be. Are they the kind
of people who sacrifice other people for their own perceived
benefit, or can they accept the fact that other people too
have justified rights? (Israeli leaderships and fanatics
supporting Israel try to wiggle they way around questions
like these by claiming that "Israel has no choice", which of
course is absolute cr*p. You always have choices. Sometimes
they may just don´t be to your liking.

By the way, it tells lot of the US for MSNBC even to
contemplate that Israel shouldn´t leave the West Bank.

Shooting at MPs won't do any good. Neither Israel nor
Palestinians can benefit from this dead-end violence.

If there wouldn´t be people who benefit from the current
situation, then it wouldn´t exist. Israel´s current
leadership does benefit and it has been able to convince
the electorate that they too benefit more from the
continuation of violence than peace; of course it isn´t
marketed to them as such, but that´s what they get:
Greater Israel and continuation of violence. And they do
seem to be quite happy with this, if the polls tell anything.

The End of Power. Without American hegemony the world would
likely return to the dark ages.

It´s Niall Ferguson - going totally hysterical. He really
seems to believe himself to be a latter day prophet, on a
holy mission to convince the Americans of their role as
the Supreme Rulers of All Humanity, the sad sod.

The Quartet of Cowardice and Sharon´s Master Plan.

Big countries have a habit of doing this kind of sh*t deals,
going on the side of the aggressor, simply because it´s
easier. And pretty much always they are wrong and just make
the situation worser. The most famous example is, of course,
München 1938, and newer is the support given to the Serbs
at the beginning of the breaking up of Yugoslavia. On both
instances, it was believed that the problem could be solved by
forcing the little guys give up.

The Valles Marineris canyon, as viewed by Mars Express.

Hopefully the MARSIS radar can be deployed soon; after all, it´s
pretty much the most important of the orbiter´s instruments.

Pity that the Swiss were so soft; a better team could have
finished the French during the first half by scoring from
the chances they had - and the Croats can blame only
themselves (and Tudor especially) for not getting to the
quarter-finals. Hopefully Bulgaria surprises the Italians today.

Palestine issue confuses Britons.

Private craft makes space history.

Small step for mankind, but huge step for all wealthy tourists.

It´s really a nice achievement, but can it be economically
succesful? Will this lead to private spacecrafts that can
reach orbit and carry cargo and persons in the kind of amounts
that could really "open" space for humanity?

Time will tell.

Seymour Hersh:Plan B. As June 30th approaches, Israel looks
to the Kurds.

Last time they co-operated, it ended in a triple betrayal
of the Kurds by the evil axis of Iran&Israel&US in 1974.

U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees.

Steve Forbes:Getting Serious About Syria and Iran.

My mother used to say that reading too much Bible
makes you crazy, but I think that having too much
money has the same effect.

US military expedition to Syria? Occupying part of Syria?
From the ivory tower of money it´s easy to make idiotic
plans and forget the realities; like that there is no
shred of evidence that Syria supports Iraqi guerillas
- for by the way - have a right to resist US occupation
under international law. And that the US has few friends
in the Middle East - and the world - and that kind of
gung-ho imperialism would just makes things hell of a
lot worse for US - and especially the locals. Which seems
to be too complicated for the nut.

Why not a military expedition to Turkey and the creation
of a buffer zone against possible future Turkish incursions
to northern Iraq which could unstabilize Iraq? After all,
Turkish troops have been a common sight in the northern
Iraq Kurdistan since the Gulf War and Turkey has a large,
oppressed Kurdish population.

Missile strike by US kills 22 civilians in Iraq.

Kurds Advancing to Reclaim Land in Northern Iraq.

"Kurdish ancestral lands" were not all as ethnically
homogenous prior to the ethnic cleansing of Kurds began by
the Baath regime in 1974 as the examples cited in the
article. Example is the town of Kirkuk, where Kurds
probably were the largest ethnic group only from the
1950s onwards to the mid 1970s. But dreams of the future
are projected backwards in time to justify the fullfillment
of these dreams. One has to remember that like so many
other peoples, the Kurds - who have been a distinct
group of people for at least 2000 years - emerged as
a "nation" in the 19th century. The word "Kurd" is used
first time by a Kurdish writer in the 17th century - if
I remember correctly.

Displaced people have of course right to return to their
homelands, but it has to be remembered that new ethnic
cleansing can´t be justified on the basis of a previous
one. Especially in the current volatile situation in Iraq
any return of refugees should be tightly organized and
agreed upon by all major sides. Otherwise things can turn
far uglier than they are now.

And at least in my mind came one question in that the
article didn´t touch: Are all the Kurds returning refugees
from the areas they are coming? How do you prove that you
really are a refugee and not just a settler looking for land?

Americans are champions of arrogant whining. In the Web,
a good place to follow the more intellectual episodes of
egoism and jingoistic hysteria is Arts&Letters Daily,
more "down to earth" versions are found every day from
the pages of American newspapers in the Web.

Swedes continue to play well, Italy let victory and maybe
a place in the quarter finals to slip from their hands,
Denmark plays badly and beats lethargic Bulgaria.

Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands.

Well, they do share a common goal: Shaping the Middle East
to their liking.

Al-Qaida´s "top man" in Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin,
has allegedly died in a gun battle with the Saudi police.

Arafat recognises Jewish state and limit to return of refugees.

Nothing new here really. Arafat has said this before
and most of the PLO top brass seem to share his view;
but there are differences. One earlier interview
suggested that Arafat wanted a right of return to
about 400 000 refugees - Mahmoud Abbas wanted a higher
number. According a gallup last year, some 400 000
- 500 000 refugees want to return to Israel. Probably
a higher number would want to, if the borders would be
drawn so, that they could return to a Palestinian state.

PLO gave up 78% Palestine in the Oslo agreement - and
for this Israel takes half of West Bank, leaving some
10% to the Palestinians. One should not make concessions
to the Israelis. After all, this just makes them think
that they can get you make more and more and more...

I just hope that in the end this game that the Israelis
are playing backfires and they end in the ditch themselves.
They certainly deserve it after everything they have made.

Third of Europe's child deaths environment-related.
Europe's five worst child killers.

First from the New Scientist, second from the BBC.

Two-mile Gaza moat to foil tunnels to Egypt.

The übermensch are at it again.

Well, bastards are bastards. Except according to
religious zealots, fascists and naive ignorants -
the folk that support Israel.

But you reap what you sow.

Egyptian tombs reveal a complex society

Poor of today build above the poor of 3000 BCE.

Spirit rover sights 'blueberries'(BBC).

New envoy to tackle Sahara deadlock.

Bulldozers begin Ariel barrier.

Against these kind of crap states, sanctions or the
plentiful use of violence are the only alternatives.

In both cases, the failure of peace plans fall totally
on the occupying side. The problem is, that they don´t
have any incentives to quit the occupation. Like saving
their lives or the economic future of their country.

Israel starts Ariel barrier work.

Übermensch enlargen their lebensraum and US shouts:
"Israel has the right to defend itself!"

Which isn´t true, of course. Apartheid states bent on
ethnic cleansing and landgrabs have no right to defend
themselves, nor have their citizens right to live in peace:
If they don´t let other people live in peace on their own
land, then how could they themselves have this right?

Somehow Judaism has become one of those ideologies in which
name every kind of crime and atrocity can be committed with
clear conscience.

"These are my guests, and this is my
house", Priest stands up to the Wall.

One of our new representatives in the European parlament
is fundamentalist Christian, whose main hobbies are -
according to himself - supporting Israel and football,
in that order. It´s curious how Christians are eager to
support the oppression of other Christians. Maybe the
reason is that their head is full of sh*t.

Dispossession and Violation.
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited.

Urgent action call on US climate.

In vain.

I hate it when the Swedes play well.

Latvia was a pleasant surprise, even when they in the end
lost, but the Dutch will have a hard time to go through.
They played badly against the average Germans. Beautiful
Dutch football seems belong to the past.

Saudi Arabia created the monster now devouring it.

The chances of a democratic Saudi Arabia? Nil.

High-profile air strikes 'killed only civilians'.

50 US air strikes that killed at least 30 Iraqi civilians each.

Cassini has send back the best pictures we will
have of Phoebe for at least the next quarter of
century. And they are great.

Well, it was a sorry display from England, in the end.
They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, in the best
English tradition. Defeat that will be remembered for decades.
Before they committed suicide, the English team played
well. They should go through. Croatia and Switzerland
are pretty toothless teams.

Excuses for England´s coming sorry display against France in
the evening game are ready. Some, like this one from the BBC,
think that a bad beginning would be a good omen for England.

Why? Well, history proves it, according to the writer. Is
there any thing on this planet that history wouldn´t prove
according to somebody?

I like English football, but the English national team has been
an average collection of mediocre players for a long time. This
current bunch of players couldn´t win the Premiership. The League
Cup, maybe.

Palestine Policy Paralysis
Face it: There is no "key" to Middle East peace.

For every problem there are reason(s) for the problem
and way(s) to solve the it. Bringing peace to Palestine
is rather easy (it wouldn´t end all violence instantly,
but then violence don´t go on/off just by pushing button,
it takes time for things to cool down), but the
problem is that Israel is not ready for a realistical
peace deal and the Western countries don´t want to
force it accept one. What Smith is advocating here is just
hidden pro-Israeli propaganda; leaving things like they are,
which suites just fine for most Israelis, like it would suit
any typical colonialist sure of his/her own superiority and
afraid of the terrible Native taking back his/her land and'
sending the colonialist backing his/her bags.

There are hard problems to solve, like Kashmir.
Kashmir is far harder problem, because in Palestine
there´s only one side, Israel, you would have to
force to accept a decent deal. In Kashmir you have
two powerful and one mediocre nuclear power, whose
leaders are not ready to any kind of deal that the
people on the ground are ready to accept. They want
independence, but the leaders of China, India and
Pakistan will not accept this. It would be extremely
hard to force China or India to accept any kind of
deal which wouldn´t just make todays division of
Kashmir officially recognized; Pakistan could be forced
to accept other kinds of deals, but it´s current
more-or-less-pro-Western dictator and the secular state are
weak and could be swept away by a Islamist insurrection or
at least a coup would bring another general to become the
new dictator, if the deal wouldn´t suit them.

What Smith advocates is just closing eyes and hoping that
the problem goes away and Israel succedes to drive
Palestinians into bantustans, which then would "solve"
the problem. It wouldn´t solve anything, the violence
would continue, but at least Smith could rejoice the birth
of Greater Israel with his fellow fascists.

It really is rather a suprise how much support Israel
enjoys among the (far-)right. The old antisemitism
remains among the traditionalists, but the newer breed
of rightwingers, like Italy´s neo-Fascists, are quite
keen to support Israel.

And the "key" to Palestine? State of Palestine in 100%
of West Bank and Gaza, compensations for most of the
refugees and right of return for some. Israel´s
demographic fears could be eased if there would be for
example one refugee given right of return for every
person of Jewish descent who emigrates to Israel. Israel
plans to bring over million "Jews" to Israel in the next
10-20 years. This solution would mean right of return
for half a million refugees, whose demograhic effect
on the population of Israel wouldn´t be huge. In the
end of century, two thirds of Israel´s population would
be still of Jewish descent.

Results are coming from Cassini´s Phoebe flyby.

In the New York Times Thomas L. Friedman claims
that Israel should withdraw from Gaza and take
"the Moral High Ground".

It´s a bit too late for that - in fact a far too late.
Israel has lost the possibility to retreat on to a moral
high ground decades ago. Too many atrocities, too many
murdered civilians, displaced people, destroyed land.
There´s no moral high ground left on which to retreat.

On the other hand, retreating from Gaza, West Bank
and Golan heights completely would bring peace. But
peace has never been that important for Israel´s
governments. If it would have been, there wouldn´t be
have been this much blood shed. But Israeli politicians
care more about landgrabs than human lives.

Errors Are Seen in Early Attacks on Iraqi Leaders.

Which is the last time that the US has declared war on
another country? They still wail about Pearl Harbor, but they
have done awful lot of sneak attacks lately themselves.

Secret world of US jails.

US government folk don´t seem to understand, that
to be the good guy you have to act like one. Mere
rhetoric doesn´t do the trick.

Portugal was... mediocre. Luis Figo is past his prime,
like couple of other older players in the team, and
they play badly together, lacked the will to win etc.
Greece was a splendid surprise. They could go through
if Russia plays against them with the same tactic as
they played with Spain, who for a while seemed ready to
start their games with usual disappointment. Valéron saved
the game for them. The Russians, on the otherhand,
made bad decisions when they got near Spain´s goal.
They really could have taken a point from this game.

European football championship tournament starts today.
This is a bigger event for me than even the Olympics in
Athens; football is my favorite sport. But one thing in
the tournament irritates me; the lack of a bronze medal
game. It really takes off some glory from the silver medal
winners, as they fall in the shadow of the winners. Their
achievement would more admired. Germany´s silver medal in
the last World Cup is seen as a good achievement for them,
and so is Turkey´s bronze medal. The previous bronze
medalists in the three World Cups are all victors in their
own right, not among the biggest footballing nations, they
succeeded to bring home a medal.

The bronze medalists of European Championships in the
past are viewed as losers, really. Czech didn´t gain as
much as fame as it really would have earned in 1996, and
I haven´t noticed that the Italian players that were in
the 2000 team have been thrilled because of their silver
medals. At least they haven´t bragged about them.

In the European Cup, the teams that would have played
for the bronze medal between 1984-2000 games would
have been in many cases teams that nobody expected to
survive to the semifinals; a bronze medal would have
been a great achievement from them and something they
probably, given the chance, have liked to win.

When the bronze game was dropped from the European Cup
after 1980, the competition was a different one, less
respected and the teams in the top four were among the
bigger national teams of their day. Third place in the
games wasn´t up to much for them.

Who knows, if there would be a bronze medal game, then
maybe England and Spain could once have something to
bring home back to the fans? Or Portugal to show for
the home fans, as they are unlikely to progress farther
than in the semifinals.

A torturer's charter.
Secret documents show that US interrogators are above the law.

He lied and cheated in the name of anti-communism.
From Iraq, Reagan didn't look so freedom-loving.

Saving Private Ivan.

Nothing new under the Israeli sun.

Chimps nearing extinction, study warns.
Orphan data suggests one species could be gone in 20 years.

Terrorism Debacles in the Reagan Administration.

One of the main goals of the "War against terrorism" seems to
be legalise state terrorism, make it as an acceptable fact and
at the same time cultivate hysterical attitude towards terrorism
committed by individuals and non-governmental organizations.

Terrorism at such is just a tool. Just like war. Considering
all terrorism wrong is as foolish and naive as considering
all wars wrong. There are cruel regimes which won´t cease
to exist or change their ways because of civil disobedience.
Sometimes they have to be brought down by invidual human
beings or non-governmental organizations, sometimes by other
states, if they are willing.

Total number of Palestinian deaths & injuries
in West Bank & Gaza since Sept 29th, 2000.

Situation on the ground "very bleak",
Palestinian rights committee told.

An American in The Hague.

Using Innovative Approach, Astronomers Unveil "Very
Hot Jupiters" Thousands of Light Years Away.

Best site for news about extrasolar planets is
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. Just facts.

Guantanamo Detainees' Medical Files Shared.

DARFUR DESTROYED. Ethnic Cleansing by Government
and Militia Forces in Western Sudan, by Human Rights Watch.

Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Torture.

According to Dershowitz, torture isn´t a bad thing
if good people do it for a noble cause. When in human
history have torturers thought that they are bad
people and are doing evil things for a wrong cause?
Who will choose, which torturer is a good guy
and who is a bad guy? Alan Derschowitz? Or are
Americans (and some of their most cherished allies)
always good guys and the rest bad guys?

Do we end in a same kind of situation like we have
with the nuclear weapons? The "right" countries can
have them and the rest don´t? So that the United
States (and it´s most cherished allies) can torture
people and "rogue states" can´t?

Reagan was the Butcher of My People.

Lots of berries to pick in Endurance.

Quark experiment predicts heavier Higgs particle.

Ice core reveals a worrying truth about Earth's climate.
Scientists drilling in the Antarctic have found evidence that man-made greenhouse gases are causing the planet's climate to destabilise - and could bring on a new ice age in 15,000 years.
More.

Martian salt adds to case for ancient water. (Spirit home)

Mars Express sees evidence of flooding at Mangala Valles
and Evidence of flooding at Mangala Valles.

Perfect pterosaur found in fossil egg.

True American Heroes in training:

Army Now Says G.I. Was Beaten in Role.

Our kind of dictators.

Britain prefers monitors to military action to avert disaster in Sudan.

And at the same day:

Bush and Blair call for greater Nato role in Iraq.

More cannon fodder to Iraq, and free hands for the Khartoum
government in Sudan.

American arrogance combined with American ignorance about
realities of the situation:

Some Oppose Bush's Mideast Teacher Plan.

With this kind of attitude, the Americans should
not be surprised that they are treated the way
they currently are around the globe:

Michael Ramirez Editorial Cartoons
(from the Los Angeles Times).

Just cartoons, but cartoons that reveal a lot about the
American character. Racistic, partisan, self-centered,
ignorant, unobjective, egoistic and so on.

Why, for example, the Americans think that people in
whole Europe (and remember how far American troops got
before the German surrender), should be forever grateful
for the role the US played in the World War II´s European
theater of war? The Russians are not whining all the time
that their role is not appreciated. The American
soldiers would have been slaughtered in France if the
German war machine wouldn´t have broken down in the
plains of Ukraine. I don´t think that the average
American feels that he/she should be grateful for Russia
and Russians for this.

And the cartoons about Palestine... Making victims
guilty for their own suffering. Now that would be
something that Göbbels would have appreciated. You
may say that one should not take mere cartoons
seriously, but in cartoons the worst cliches and
stereotypes can be combined to produce effective
propaganda for aggression and oppression. And during
World War II (and before it), cartoons where put to
this kind of use. The average Joe may not read
editorials from the Los Angeles Times or Voelkische
Beobachter, but he will certainly see the cartoons
and comics.

Stories of the Evil Empire:

Twisting American Values.

The Roots of Abu Ghraib.

Bush ignored Pentagon lawyers over tactics in war on terror.

Legalizing Torture.

The torturers among us.

Kurds Threaten to Bolt Iraq Government. More.

The problem with independent Iraqi Kurdistan is
that nobody excepts the Kurds want it and are
ready to support it. In Africa, Somaliland ceded
from Somalia in 1991 and is a minor success story;
it´s stable and at least it´s people have hope
of a better future, something that most people of
(former) Somalia can´t claim. But no country in the
world has recognized the independence of Somaliland.

Somalia went to pieces after the ousting of the
dictator Mohammed Siad Barre. He too, like Saddam
Hussein, was a dictator who kept a divided country
together with the use of force. It´s too early to
say the same about Saddam Hussein, but it would
have been preferable in Somalia for the dictatorship
to continue, if the only other option would have
been the mess of the last 13 years.

Independent Iraqi Kurdistan could work - if somebody,
US or Iran, would keep Turkey out. Certainly the
Kurds, and not only in Iraq, deserve their own country.
But in reality, what one deserves has nothing to do
with geopolitical realities. And the fact is, that
a few, maybe no, countries would recognize independent
Kurdistan and that Turkey would start massing troops
behind the border.

Palestinian aid crisis unresolved.

US&UK´s gift to Israel (about 50% of the West Bank)
will make it impossible for the Palestinians to ever
survive without foreign aid. And as the population
will triple in the coming decades, the situation
will only grew worse. But this doesn´t mean anything
for the Anglo-Saxons worshipping Israel.

The modern history of Middle East is a series of
mistakes made by the major powers, one after another.
What the US&UK have done will be one of the biggest
so far. Is it really so fucking hard to kick the
436 000 Israeli asses in the occupied areas inside
pre-1967 borders?

But no, the idiots of White House and Downing Street
think that the best way to peace is to do what the
main obstacle to peace wants, and so destroy any
chance of peace in the coming decades, and maybe
far longer...

Sane voices from the Middle East.

Planet Venus completes transit. More.

I was able to watch about half of the transit,
half of the time the disk of the Sun was behind
clouds. The tiny dot of Venus was a great sight,
especially when I thought of the myriad landforms
of Venus that all exist on that tiny, black dot.

Blair urged to protest at 'legalisation' of US torture.

Atlantis found - once again.

Why do so many people want to believe that their
favorite myths are based in historical facts?
Can´t a good story - the myth of Atlantis -
be taken as it is, as a good story?

"Stories" by Plato in the web.

Americans claim Americans can torture
anyone they like because by doing so
they are just protecting Americans! More.
More.

The delusional Niall Ferguson continues to
showcase his stupidity.

History rarely shows anything, but can always
be distorted to support any kind of claim.

It has been said and written now many times that
"Iraq isn´t Vietnam", "Iraq isn´t Algeria", Iraq
isn´t this and that. But, if Iraq isn´t Algeria
or Vietnam, it most certainly isn´t Nazi Germany
or imperial Japan either.

Sometime ago I read a whining by some yankee nut about
the old claim that "Another man´s terrorist is another
man´s freedom fighter." The yankee just couldn´t swallow
it, living in a black-and-white world, like most of the
yankees do. (Of course, there are millions and millions
of yankees who are not like this, but in a country of
almost 300 million people, they just don´t matter.)

Of course, it isn´t just that another person´s terrorist
can be a hero to somebody else; it´s not uncommon that a
somebody can be called a terrorist and then a freedom
fighter - or the other way around - by the same people,
as their views or interests change. And as we are living
in a post-colonial era - a neo-colonial era if those
idiots singing the need for an "American Empire" would
prevail - there are huge numbers of leading politicians
around the globe who have in some part of their life
carried both tags.

Evidence for a recent gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way.
Picture of the supernova remnant by the Chandra X-ray space telescope.

Home page for the HETE-2 satellite, which detects
gamma-ray bursts.

Trials for crimes against humanity committed during
the civil war in Sierra Leone are now starting.

Sadly Foday Sankoh isn´t anymore able to stand trial
for the atrocities that he was the main perpetrator.

Why al-Qaeda may save the world.

Greenhouse gas crisis, 55 million years ago.

Tiny fossils reveal key step in animal evolution.

Palestinian Misery in Perspective.

Illusions about China.

I doubt very much that a democratic China is ready
to emerge any moment now. Nor that it would be
that much better in what comes to human rights and
rights of minorities. It would resemble more Vladimir
Putin´s Russia than any western democracy.

A democratically elected Chinese government would
probably be rather authoritarian, very nationalistic
and so on. If you want to stay in power in China
you have to look and act tough. No true autonomy
for Tibet. It doesn´t matter whether you are elected by
the elder members of the Communist Party or in a
democractic election.

You earn your credentials by keeping up the order,
stability and unity of China, and at the same
time bringing at least a modest positive change to
the quality of life of the majority of the people.

One of the reasons why the Kuomingtang lost in 1949
was that it failed in all four. It was weak both
internally and externally. Ironically one could say
that today´s China in it´s most succesful areas
resembles what the Kuomingtang hoped to achieve.
After all, it was then a party of rightwing socialism,
whose slogan was "Socialism without class struggle".
This is one of the facts of the Chinese civil war that
many in the West tend to forget, if they ever knew it.

The motive behind the proposed Israeli "withdrawal" from Gaza.

One should remember that South Africa "withdrew" from
the bantustans it created, and the withdrawal didn´t
save the racist apartheid regime.

So, what the Israeli Jews should think about is that
whether they want the so called "Jewish" (large number
of so-called Israeli Jews are, because of the way that
Israel defines whether one is or is not a Jew, in reality,
not Jews. They (may) have Jewish ancestors, but many of
themselves are not followers of Judaism nor they have
Jewish identity, so one can claim that Jews are not any
more the majority population Palestine even today; the
so-called Jewish state is "diluted" by immigration) state,
to linger on for few decades, or whether they want Jews
to stay as signifant part of the population of Palestine for
the foreseable future. That would be achieved if Israel
would really give the people living in occupied areas
Israeli nationality with full rights, and if Israel at
the same time would join the EU and NATO and possibly
establish permanent NATO bases on it´s soil. These would
create safety against possible fears of future ethnic
cleansing. That would make South Africa as a possible
role model for the future of Palestine, and not Algeria.

The world may, and most likely will, watch passively and
sing the praises of Israel, if they go on with the
so-called withdrawal and future landgrabs, but they will
not save Israel as "Jewish" state. Full withdrawal from
all occupied areas probably would, but any foreseable
Israeli government will unlikely to have the sense or
will to do so.