Obama-World: Where You Can if You Will

Nothing illustrates the nature of psychological neoteny and academic lobotomy so much as popular movements divorced from reality. Emotion empty of reason. Take the Obama campaign for US President.

Senator Obama wrote his memoir "Dreams of My Father" 13 years ago in 1995. In that book, Obama presents the formative years of his life, and the important intellectual and emotional inputs that went into making Barack the boy into Senator Obama, candidate of hope. Yet, what proportion of Obama-joiners have read the book and considered its importance?

One of the most important influences in Obama's life has been the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In 2006 alone, Obama donated $22,500 to Rev. Wright's church--where Obama and his family are long-time members. A large proportion of Obama supporters are ignoring Obama's 1995 book, and his mentor Jeremiah Wright. That group of consciously oblivious supporters apparently includes the US national mainstream media. And that is not all the US MSM is ignoring.

You might say, the US presidential campaign is in the throes of hope without foundation. But it is actually hope based upon wishful thinking. Wishful thinking without foundation. I can understand why youthful and naive voters would indulge in such wishful thinking. I can understand why US black voters, raised under almost forty years worth of entitlement thinking would indulge in a rather darker form of wishful thinking. But I cannot understand the national news media's willingness to ignore its public trust and obligation to present the news.

Image Source

Multiculturalism Meme: Lethal for the West?

Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passed it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.___RichardDawkins

A lethal meme, analogous to a lethal gene, is a meme that leads to a certain level of lethality for the society or culture that is parasitised by the lethal meme. Meme-complexes are even more sophisticated than simple memes, and lethal meme-complexes produce more wide-ranging lethal effects to entire cultures and civilisations. Multiculturalism is one such meme-complex.

The idea that all cultures are equal in merit and deserving respect, an idea devoid of any historical perspective, could be seriously proposed and adopted only in western liberal democracies. And logically such an idea meant only one thing, the diminution of the West and its achievements in comparison to other cultures.

Multiculturalism institutionalized as a policy, run by self-perpetuating bureaucracies and sustained by entrepreneurs of a growing multicultural industry, became an easy ride for its proponents and clients.

Immigrants were not required to embrace the West's culture and complex history; and the West did not have to strain itself in instructing immigrants on the need or importance of embracing it, warts and all.

Multiculturalism worked so long as the illusion of cultural harmony could be maintained.

But once the sham of equality got exposed by the heat of Islamist violence -- once it became undeniable that a culture in which a woman, for instance, can assert her individual freedom without fear is not at par with a culture where a woman's worth is less than that of a man -- multiculturalism as an idea was dead.

Historians will note a period of confusion followed the death of multiculturalism before the West asserted its ideals of freedom and democracy, and moved on. ___TorontoSun

The West is confronted by more enemies than multiculturalism within, and Islamism without. The West is also confronted with China, Russia, and an unholy alliance of corrupt thugocracies that span the globe.

One thing is certain. As long as the killing meme-complex of multiculturalism is taught as dogma in the universities and lower schools of the West, the death of the West will continue to hang in the balance.

Men and women who love the hard-fought ideals of the West such as

• freedom of economy, thought, assembly, and religion
• limited, representative government
• individual rights of self-determination and self-defense
• separation of ideology and state
• the freedom to conceive and work toward a marvelous future
• and many more ideals of widespread non-violence, self-determination and well-being

will need to make themselves heard, leaving no doubt as to their intention and ability to defeat all enemies of these ideals. The West cannot be weak and passive to these threats from within and without. Never surrender these ideals.

Meme-Gene Coevolution PDF and streaming
Dawkins on Memes
The Meme Meme

Hugo Chavez: Making the Rich Poor, Making the Poor Dead, Making Himself Jefe

Hugo Chavez is seen by leftist idiots as the champion of the poor. That is because leftist idiots are easy to fool by unscrupulous and bloody dictators. Chavez fits cleanly into that mold.

The claim that Chávez has brought tangible benefits to the Venezuelan poor has indeed by now become commonplace, even among his critics. In a letter addressed to President George W. Bush on the eve of the 2006 Venezuelan presidential elections, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Dolores Huerta, and Tom Hayden wrote, "Since 1999, the citizens of Venezuela have repeatedly voted for a government that -- unlike others in the past -- would share their country's oil wealth with millions of poor Venezuelans." The Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has noted, "Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seems to have succeeded in bringing education and health services to the barrios of Caracas, which previously had seen little of the benefits of that country's rich endowment of oil." Even The Economist has written that "Chávez's brand of revolution has delivered some social gains."

One would expect such a consensus to be backed up by an impressive array of evidence. But in fact, there is remarkably little data supporting the claim that the Chávez administration has acted any differently from previous Venezuelan governments -- or, for that matter, from those of other developing and Latin American nations -- in redistributing the gains from economic growth to the poor. One oft-cited statistic is the decline in poverty from a peak of 54 percent at the height of the national strike in 2003 to 27.5 percent in the first half of 2007. Although this decline may appear impressive, it is also known that poverty reduction is strongly associated with economic growth and that Venezuela's per capita GDP grew by nearly 50 percent during the same time period -- thanks in great part to a tripling of oil prices. The real question is thus not whether poverty has fallen but whether the Chávez government has been particularly effective at converting this period of economic growth into poverty reduction. One way to evaluate this is by calculating the reduction in poverty for every percentage point increase in per capita income -- in economists' lingo, the income elasticity of poverty reduction. This calculation shows an average reduction of one percentage point in poverty for every percentage point in per capita GDP growth during this recovery, a ratio that compares unfavorably with those of many other developing countries, for which studies tend to put the figure at around two percentage points. Similarly, one would expect pro-poor growth to be accompanied by a marked decrease in income inequality. But according to the Venezuelan Central Bank, inequality has actually increased during the Chávez administration, with the Gini coefficient (a measure of economic inequality, with zero indicating perfect equality and one indicating perfect inequality) increasing from 0.44 to 0.48 between 2000 and 2005.

...Remarkably, given Chávez's rhetoric and reputation, official figures show no significant change in the priority given to social spending during his administration. The average share of the budget devoted to health, education, and housing under Chávez in his first eight years in office was 25.12 percent, essentially identical to the average share (25.08 percent) in the previous eight years. And it is lower today than it was in 1992, the last year in office of the "neoliberal" administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez -- the leader whom Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, tried to overthrow in a coup, purportedly on behalf of Venezuela's neglected poor majority.

In a number of recent studies, I have worked with colleagues to look more systematically at the results of Chávez's health and education misiones. Our findings confirm that Chávez has in fact done little for the poor. For example, his government often claims that the influx of Cuban doctors under the Barrio Adentro health program is responsible for a decline in infant mortality in Venezuela. In fact, a careful analysis of trends in infant and neonatal mortality shows that the rate of decline is not significantly different from that of the pre-Chávez period, nor from the rate of decline in other Latin American countries. Since 1999, the infant mortality rate in Venezuela has declined at an annual rate of 3.4 percent, essentially identical to the 3.3 percent rate at which it had declined during the previous nine-year period and lower than the rates of decline for the same period in Argentina (5.5 percent), Chile (5.3 percent), and Mexico (5.2 percent).

Even more disappointing are the results of the government's Robinson literacy program....In contrast to the government's claim, we found that there were more than one million illiterate Venezuelans by the end of 2005, barely down from the 1.1 million illiterate persons recorded in the first half of 2003, before the start of the Robinson program. Even this small reduction, moreover, is accounted for by demographic trends rather than the program itself. In a battery of statistical tests, we found little evidence that the program had had any statistically distinguishable effect on Venezuelan illiteracy. We also found numerous inconsistencies in the government's story. For example, it claims to have employed 210,410 trainers in the anti-illiteracy effort (approximately two percent of the Venezuelan labor force), but there is no evidence in the public employment data that these people were ever hired or evidence in the government budget statistics that they were ever paid.

...by late 2007, Chávez's economic model had begun to unravel. For the first time since early 2004, a majority of voters claimed that both their personal situation and the country's situation had worsened during the preceding year. Scarcities in basic foodstuffs, such as milk, black beans, and sardines, were chronic, and the difference between the official and the black-market exchange rate reached 215 percent. When the Central Bank board received its November price report indicating that monthly inflation had risen to 4.4 percent (equivalent to an annual rate of 67.7 percent), it decided to delay publication of the report until after the vote on the constitutional reform was held.

This growing economic crisis is the predictable result of the gross mismanagement of the economy by Chávez's economic team. During the past five years, the Venezuelan government has pursued strongly expansionary fiscal and economic policies, increasing real spending by 137 percent and real liquidity by 218 percent. This splurge has outstripped even the expansion in oil revenues: the Chávez administration has managed the admirable feat of running a budget deficit in the midst of an oil boom.

Such expansionary policies were appropriate during the deep recession that Venezuela faced in the aftermath of the political and economic crisis of 2002-3. But by continuing the expansion after the recession ended, the government generated an inflationary crisis. The problem has been compounded by efforts to address the resulting imbalances with an increasingly complex web of price and exchange controls coupled with routine threats of expropriation directed at producers and shopkeepers as a warning not to raise prices. Not surprisingly, the response has been a steep drop in food production and widening food scarcity.

...What is most distressing is how predictable all of this was. Indeed, Cháveznomics is far from unprecedented: the gross contours of this story follow the disastrous experiences of many Latin American countries during the 1970s and 1980s. The economists Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards have characterized such policies as "the macroeconomics of populism." Drawing on the economic experiences of administrations as politically diverse as Juan Perón's in Argentina, Salvador Allende's in Chile, and Alan García's in Peru, they found stark similarities in economic policies and in the resulting economic evolution. Populist macroeconomics is invariably characterized by the use of expansionary fiscal and economic policies and an overvalued currency with the intention of accelerating growth and redistribution. These policies are commonly implemented in the context of a disregard for fiscal and foreign exchange constraints and are accompanied by attempts to control inflationary pressures through price and exchange controls. The result is by now well known to Latin American economists: the emergence of production bottlenecks, the accumulation of severe fiscal and balance-of-payments problems, galloping inflation, and plummeting real wages.

Chávez's behavior is typical of such populist economic experiments. The initial successes tend to embolden policymakers, who increasingly believe that they were right in dismissing the recommendations of most economists. Rational policy formulation becomes increasingly difficult, as leaders become convinced that conventional economic constraints do not apply to them. Corrective measures only start to be taken when the economy has veered out of control. But by then it is far too late. __ForeignAffairs

Chavez is a typical populist strong-arm dictator of a certain "socialist" persuasion, whose grasp of economics is typically thin. He is so much like Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, Fidel, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler, as to be blood brothers in national ruination.

Why are leftists so easily led into perdition by these miscreants? Wishful thinking accompanied by a lack of grounding in the real world of economics. In modern western civilisation, this is an all too common combination. In fact, if you graduate from university without a thorough indoctrination in inane, illogical leftist quasi-utopian delusionary thinking, you are a rare wonder.

Chavez Caught in His Own Trap

Hugo Chavez has mobilized his army along the Venezuelan/Colombian border. Faced with discontent at home, and growing international evidence that he is helping to finance the FARC campaign of narco-terrorist violence against neighboring Colombia, Chavez feels forced to act. Unfortunately for Hugo, his powerful friends--Russia and China--are too far away to be of much help, should the US decide to include Chavez' small nation in the international "Axis of Evil."

This week, Colombia launched a strike against a FARC base in Ecuador. Tired of terrorism, Colombia is not going to let FARC thugs hide in Ecuadorian or Venezuelan jungles. Moreover, the Colombian government now says FARC intended to attack Colombia with "dirty" (radioactive) bombs in a desperate blitz to cow the populace. Colombian president Alvaro Uribe said, "We cannot allow terrorists who seek refuge in other countries to spill the blood of our countrymen."

Ecuador and its ally, Venezuela, responded by threatening Colombia with war.

Colombia argues that support for FARC by Ecuador and Venezuela means a state of quasi-war already exists.

FARC definitely established a political relationship with Chavez-led Venezuela. Chavez advocates "socialism" (socialist dictatorship), and FARC had Marxist roots. Last year, the connections became overt when Chavez asked Colombia to agree to let FARC use Venezuela as a "sanctuary zone."

Despite their blatant thuggery, both Chavez and FARC still have "progressive" apologists in Europe and among American leftists. Chavez claims Fidel Castro's "anti-Yankee" legacy, which polishes his "progressive" appeal. Add this to the flammable mix: Ecuador's president is a personal ally of Chavez and something of a protege.

The conventional wisdom says Chavez is bluffing. The Peru-Ecuador Border War of 1995, however, demonstrates that border skirmishing in South America can quickly escalate. Still, South American border wars stir nationalist passions -- in the 1995 conflict, Peru's authoritarian president, Alberto Fujimori, saw his popularity skyrocket.

Chavez faces domestic troubles. He has brutalized his domestic opponents. He has squandered Venezuela's oil windfall -- on populist political schemes and Russian weapons. He suffered a stinging setback in late 2007 in a referendum that would have essentially made him president for life. Oil production is declining. His political supporters have enriched themselves, sparking resentment among poor Venezuelans who once overwhelmingly backed Chavez. ___StrategyPage

Chavez believes that going to war will unite the country behind him. But that strategy does not always work out well for the aggressor. In fact, with the US preparing to gear down operations in Iraq, battle hardened units of the US military will be looking for new "training ground."

Chavez y Correa: Twin Clowns of Different Mothers

Colombia has been forced to endure the terrorist FARC organisation since the 1960s. But Colombia is growing tired of the narco-terrorism of FARC, the political assassinations, the bloody mess FARC has made of the Colombian countryside. So Colombia borrowed a few tricks from the US coalition's "War on Terror" and dropped a bomb on some of FARC's top thugs. True, the thugs were enjoying the hospitality of Correa's Ecuador at the time, but perhaps terrorists should not be allowed safe haven, after all. Who told terrorists they could take "time out" whenever they wanted. Chavez and Correa--the clowns of latin America?

Colombia said on Sunday documents found in a camp in Ecuador where Colombian troops killed a top guerrilla boss showed ties between the FARC rebels and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, including contacts about political proposals and local military commanders.

FARC rebel commander Raul Reyes was killed inside Ecuador in an army operation that has fuelled tensions between Washington ally Colombia and neighbours Venezuela and Ecuador, where leftist leaders are fiercely opposed to U.S. proposals.

Police Commander Gen. Oscar Naranjo said documents found in computers belonging to Reyes showed contacts between a Correa government minister, Gustavo Larrea, and the FARC commander to discuss political proposals and projects on the frontier.

"The questions raised by these documents need concrete answers," Naranjo said. "What is the state of relations between Ecuador's government and a terrorist group like the FARC."___Source

Other papers found in the camp suggested economic ties between FARC and Chavez' Venezuela. In fact, Chavez was stupid enough to threaten Colombia with war if it ever killed FARC thugs inside of Venezuela! Can you imagine the idiocy of the brainless dictator Chavez? He as much as admitted that he gave safe harbour to the narco-terrorists inside his country!

If Chavez truly wants to shift this farce into the end-game stage, he is going about it exactly the right way. Fidel is gone. Chavez wants to be the new Fidel, but Chavez is stupid. His days are numbered.

Turkey Becoming Growing Regional Power

Turkey is situated to play an increasingly important role as controller of the crossroads between Europe and Muslim Asia and the Middle East. Besides the Persian Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Turkey is the only Muslim nation that is open enough to the outside world to truly prosper in many areas of world commerce besides the petro-energy industry.

With its large military, burgeoning economy, and pivotal location as a bridge between two continents, Turkey has emerged as a crucial player involving regional geopolitics in both the Caspian Basin and the greater Middle East. As detailed in its most recent "Turkey Military Market Overview," Forecast International anticipates that Ankara's growing role as a regional powerbroker will be strengthened in coming years as its geopolitical bandwidth expands eastward.

Turkey's multiple strengths - including its sizeable population, growing economy, strategic geographic position, and well-equipped armed forces (second-largest in the NATO Alliance) - serve to cement it as both an anchor against regional instability and as a nation with a significant role to play in Near East power politics.

Although its long-standing mission statement has been incorporation with the West, in recent years the country has tilted its foreign policy focus towards its historical backyard of the Middle East and has played upon shared ethnic and cultural backgrounds with several energy-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

...Two key events have altered Turkey's foreign policy focus in the past two decades: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The first relieved pressure on Turkey's north and freed it to reposition its security focus; the second created strains within its traditionally close relationship with Washington over the possibility of an independent Kurdish state being carved out of the fragments of a splintered, post-Saddam Iraq.

With a significant Kurdish population of around 20 percent and ongoing battles with the outlawed militant grouping known as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkey is wary of a Kurdish state emerging on its southeastern border and acting as inspiration to minority separatist sentiments.

..."Quite simply, Turkey is seeking ways to diversify its energy sources from dependence upon Russia, while simultaneously increasing its clout as a central transit point for European supplies," Darling said. "And with Azerbaijan onboard and Turkmenistan in the mix, Iran provides another logical option."

Yet despite the improved atmosphere between Ankara and Tehran, Turkey is also wary of a nuclear Iran upsetting the fragile regional power balance and has embarked on a competition for the supply of four to five batteries of Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) systems known as the Turkish Long-Range Air and Missile Defense Systems (or T-LORAMIDS).

Turkish attention upon retaining its defensive edge does not end there, either. Turkey - which has had economic growth of over 5 percent annually since 2002 - seeks to ensure its strategic lordship over regional rivals and as such, remains a significant importer of sophisticated military hardware.___Source

Turkey aims to be the regional hegemon--much as it was before the fall of the Istanbul Caliphate after WWI. As long as Turkey does not fall to reactionary Islamists who would take Turkey back to the stone age, the country has a chance to achieve its goals.

Turkey will have to do something about the mad mullahs of Iran, with their nihilist nuclear nightmare of the twelfth Imam, the mahdi. Turkey will have little influence over the fate of the middle east, if a nuclear Iran drives Saudi Arabia nuclear to counter. In that sense, Turkey, the US, and Israel share a common concern with Iraq and the Sunni Islam nations on the peninsula.

After decades of placating the powerful Russian Bear, Turkey is beginning to feel its power inside the former USSR, in central Asia. Sharing religious and often ethnic connections to central Asian republics allows Turkey something of an inside track in negotiating energy and pipeline contracts with the central Asians. This gives Turkey more clout with both Europe and India.

Turkey has developed many connections with India and Israel as well, almost unique among larger Muslim nations. Closer ties with India should provide huge economic opportunities for the Turks.

The current Kurdish conflict is the largest sore spot with Turkey at this time. But Turkey would be making a huge mistake to sacrifice its huge potential to be a regional hegemon, just to settle old scores with Kurdish separatist. Much smarter would be to create a small area of semi-autonomy for the Kurds, to achieve some type of settlement. The Kurds have achieved remarkable prosperity and autonomy within the new Iraq, and Turkish Kurds will not settle for much less. The same will apply to Iranian and Syrian Kurds, with time.

Overall Turkey's situation looks good. Turkey had best see that it does not shoot itself in the foot over the Kurds.

Obama: The Man Who Would Be King

Why is Obama smiling? Perhaps if this wonderful, charismatic speaker, this man who has risen so quickly that he is still basically a State Senator in mental outlook truly understood what he was getting into, he would show a bit more concern.

Obama tried speaking about substance when he mentioned the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he displayed an astounding ignorance of the military instrument. He said that an anonymous U.S. Army captain told him that his infantry platoon was split and sent to different areas of operations; that they were lacking vehicles; and that they had insufficient ammunition to fight.

Although problems do occur in combat situations to be sure, none of what Obama related makes any sense ...

Politicians rely heavily, on almost every subject, on advisors to get them educated and keep them current. And nobody really expects Obama or Clinton or even McCain, who was a Navy aviator, to know anything about ground combat. But one does expect the candidate to employ advisors who know what they are talking about and to prevent their candidate from embarrassment.

While Obama has attracted money, notoriety and delegates, he has yet to attract military advisers who know what they are doing. ___Source

Who is Obama truly depending on, as advisors? Is he depending on the "poster-boy" economic and policy advisors put forward by his campaign, or is he performing as required for the "campaign show", while intending to fall back on his most pivotal and most trusted advisors once the deal is done? I suspect that Michelle Obama will play a very strong role in any Obama administration. A very alienated Michelle, with a strong sense of entitlement and victimisation--a dangerous combination indeed.

"Dreams of My Father", the 1995 Obama autobiography contains many clues. There may just be enough time between now and November to learn enough about the hidden core of this man who would be king.

Obama -- Running for President, or Caliph?

Senator Obama appears to have a rather mysterious past. Obama is clearly qualified to be Senator, or any other political job where not much is expected in terms of genuine wisdom, leadership, or accomplishment. But is he qualified for a job that requires him to represent all the people?

The photo above suggests more than a passing "muslim connection" on the part of the very junior Illinois senator. What other possible complications currently lie hidden, buried in obscurity by a hopeful campaign staff? Shelby Steele looked into Senator Obama's past, writing about it in "A Bound Man."

But for anyone who believes that a US President needs to be president of all the people, not just of a small but vocal minority, a simple reading of Obama's 1995 pre-autobiography, "Dreams from my Father", should be enough to show that until Obama does a lot of explaining, he is simply not a big enough man to be US President.

Most Americans would like to be able to vote for a black candidate, or--as in Obama's case--a mixed race candidate. The important thing in voting for a candidate is not his race or gender, however. It is his qualifications for the job.

Update: It keeps getting better: Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama for President!

You are Strictly Forbidden to Say a Single Bad Word About Islam, On Pain of Death

It seems that author Mark Steyn is an alarmist for pointing out a few things that are happening in Europe. Apparently, in Europe, telling an uncomfortable truth makes one an alarmist.

My book's thesis — that most of the Western world is on course to become at least semi-Islamic in its political and cultural disposition within a very short time — is "alarmist."...The question then arises: fair enough, guys, what would it take to alarm you?

...Last week, the British and Ontario governments confirmed within days of each other that thousands of polygamous men in their jurisdictions receive welfare payments for each of their wives.

...What does it mean when 57 per cent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins and 70 per cent are married to relatives? At the very least, it tells you that this community is strongly resistant to traditional immigrant assimilation patterns.

...Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset.___Macleans

What about honour killings, stoning adulterers, killing of apostates, genital mutilation, and the general, run-of-the-mill religious bigotry, hatred, and failure to assimilate?

Without pressure to conform to the norms of a larger society, immigrant muslims will form their own internal power structures--a state within a state. It is inevitable, given the totalitarian nature of Islamic life. Religion, family, government--all wrapped into one set of rules, Sharia. If the secular western government is too reticent to insist upon compliance with civil and criminal law, Muslim law will fill the void.

Leftist multiculturalism claims to view all cultures to be at least as good as western culture. But the only way for multiculturalists to tolerate the misogyny, homophobic violence, and religious intolerance of Islam, is for them to pretend it does not exist. So they do--pretend. And pretend, and pretend, and pretend. But to what end?

Here is a simple multi-cultural math question. One million male muslim immigrants each marry four female first cousins, from the old country. Each wife has four children, and collects her own welfare check for her household. If the fertility rate for indigenous English girls is close to 1 child per woman, how long before everyone in England is muslim, and living on welfare checks?

Research shows that when third world people move to the first world, the fertility rate of at least the first generation of immigrants goes up. In the case of muslims in Europe, every generation is the first generation, since muslim males send back to the old country for girl cousins to marry.

China to Send 300 Million Chinese to Africa

According to one official, China will need to move 300 million Chinese nationals to Africa, in order to reduce overpopulation and environmental devastation in the Chinese homeland.

During the last decade tens of thousands have uprooted themselves from China and migrated to Africa, with Chinese-government approval. There are estimated to be 750,000 Chinese across the continent, 900 Chinese companies, and an overall Chinese investment of $6 billion. Yet most Chinese speak neither English nor any African language....The Chinese work in agriculture, trade and construction, and are doing everything from producing oil and developing giant state-financed infrastructure projects building roads and railways, to smaller enterprises producing shoes, textiles, motorbikes, TVs and CDs.

...But the continent has come alight with Chinese enterprise. It is a new frontier for them, a land filled with promise, and Chinese faces are everywhere. Having jettisoned the communist ideological and revolutionary ideals that had tied them to Africa in the first place in favour of trade, today the Chinese are Africa’s newest, most enthusiastic and rampant capitalists...Nor do the newcomers seeking their fortune view Africa as a place of drought, war, disease and poverty – often the Western perception of Africa. “Africa is a paradise for wide lives,” said Luo Hung, a famous Chinese photographer who has been wooing fellow Chinese to Africa with photographic exhibitions in the big Chinese cities. “The landscapes, animals and human beings there create a harmonious and beautiful picture.”...A family in China will save for years to send just one of its members to Africa. Unlike cautious Westerners they are not afraid to start small – a massage parlour or restaurant here, a sewing shop or pharmacy there – which offer modest but quick returns on investment. Many live in small apartments on small wages in conditions that no European would consider.

...Like it or not, China’s growing economic presence in Africa is a reality that Europe and America have to face. It is unstoppable and has brought Africa to a tipping point. It could be a moment of immense opportunity....Chinese contractors are fast and competitively priced. There is plenty of positive spin-off. One is China’s provision of cheap chemicals enabling, in Tanzania’s case, the local pharmaceutical industry to manufacture life-saving generic anti-retroviral drugs for the millions of Africans with Aids. They cost less than £6 a month....The Chinese cash is a godsend for Africa. But it could yet turn out to be a curse if it is misused by Africa’s leaders who, Africa’s record on corruption shows, can be easily tempted.

...On big construction projects, wherever possible, the Chinese insist on importing their own workforce from China. These workers live in sprawling camps, eat like they did at home, and make little or no effort to adopt African customs, learn the language, much less marry local African girls. It is a harsh existence that no comfort-loving Westerner would consider emulating.

However, where the Chinese have done this – oil-rich Angola and mineral-rich Zambia come to mind – resentment has often arisen because of their unwillingness to employ indigenous workers. Even the unskilled labour is fulfilled by the Chinese. In Angola, the government has agreed that 70% of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. The Chinese are also causing concern at the way they have used African countries as dumping grounds for cheap goods. Many small companies across Africa have been forced into dire straits, even bankruptcy, by Chinese competition...In Tanzania, for example, the scene of China’s great railway triumph, the country’s only flip-flop factory is dying. A few years ago it employed some 3,000 people and sold flip-flops across the continent. Now it employs only 1,000. Its Lebanese manager complains that he cannot compete with cheap Chinese imports sold for less than cost price. There have been stories that the Chinese were shipping goods in diplomatic containers to the embassy in Dar es Salaam, avoiding customs and import duty.____Times

China is using Africa more ruthlessly and cynically than a western nation could, at this time. No worries about human rights, environmental quality, or the massive human suffering occurring right under the noses of Chinese traders and contractors.

The Chinese understand the ruthless dictators on the dark continent, and have no qualms about dealing directly with butchers and murderers, who allow their own people to starve and bleed. That is nothing to migrants from the middle kingdom, who are only there to make a profit, then go home.

If China ever decides to make a longer-term stand in Africa, it may be necessary for them to make "king-making" deals with tribal leaders currently out of power, to get the concessions they will want. There is nothing so expected as a bloody coup, in SubSaharan lands.

Still, 300 million emigrants from China to Africa? At a time when the massive Chinese population is aging so rapidly? If so, it is possible for one reason--the one child policy. When families routinely have but one child, there are no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no siblings. Only parents, grandparents, and child. Fewer ties to the home country, perhaps. It will be interesting to watch.

Obama Uses JFK's Speechwriter: Echoes of Camelot

Barack Obama has reached into the past for a bit of campaign magic--the ghosts of JFK and Camelot. JFK's speechwriter, Ted Sorenson, is still alive, working to build a new Camelot in Washington.

At the age of 24, he joined the staff of the newly elected Sen. John F. Kennedy and later helped him win the presidency, calling on Americans to pass the torch to a new generation...The legendary speechwriter helped Kennedy craft the now-famous 1961 Inaugural address in which the new president proclaimed, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

...Today, at 79 years old and blind, Sorensen has a new mission: to resurrect Camelot. And it seems the Obama campaign is listening.

"I've given them a phrase or suggestion or two," Sorensen admits...As for all the comparisons that have been drawn between Obama and Kennedy, "I probably started it," he told ABCNEWS.com

ABCNews
This is important. Because if you have read the transcripts of Obama's "Yes We Can" speech, accompanied by the YouTube video, you will get an inkling of the inspirational power of a well written stump speech.

Obama is dipping deeply into the well of inspirational political rhetoric. The rhetoric of JFK's Camelot appears as if by magic--a glorious crystal spring oasis in the midst of the oppressive pessimism created by the mainstream media. What a relief! Obama offers the hope of a wonderful future, divorced from the parched desperation of the present.

If you have not watched the video and read the transcript, you should do so.

Obama induces at least two powerful hopes in the hearts of his listeners:

1. To be understood.
2. To have the hope of a glorious future.

Any politician who can pluck those heart strings will gather a significant following, in terms of numbers.

Obama's speechwriters, including the aging Sorenson, are clearly reaching into more than one historical source, for inspiration. The speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. are likewise being salvaged, for what they may provide in inspiration. And to be sure, Obama is being lifted up as a multitude of icons.

As the weeks and months go by, it will be interesting to count all the icons that one can find, hidden within Obama's speeches, press releases, and fan columns by journalists and celebrities. Because it appears that Obama is to be the recipient of a deluge of decades long, previously continent outbursts of adoration, saved for just the right shining object.

"He is the one," gushes Oprah--a woman who tends to excess from time to time. "He is the truth," Oprah adds, incontinently. Apparently, Obama is to be many things, as time goes on--but particularly he is to be the inspiration for a political movement. Call him a political Messiah.

Ted Sorenson's Messiah, perhaps, returned from the dead? Certainly Oprah's Messiah, and the Messiah of Hollywood's drug saturated, jaded crew.

But is he real? Is there any "there", there? We will see.

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew--Bomb, Bomb, Bomb .... Bomb Bomb Iran

Actually, no, he does not actually come right out and say that Iran should be bombed. But if you can read between the lines... Lee is subtle, and often speaks in his silences.

Q: Which raises the question of the United States or Israel bombing Iran's nuclear facilities.

A: (long silent pause) … I can express no views on that.

Q: The Israelis say they are facing an existential crisis.

A: No question, they are at risk.

...Q: But in the Gulf, if the U.S. and/or Israel bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran has formidable asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities?

A: But let me repeat, they cannot conquer you. Hezbollah cannot conquer Lebanon. They can create trouble for the non-Hezbollah Lebanese. So micro actors can cause a lot of trouble for your friends, but they can't eradicate them.____UPI

What Lee is saying, is that yes, Israel is at deadly risk from Iranian nuclear weapons. If it were his decision to make [for Israel] he would seriously consider bombing Iran [but not invading]. He would expect retaliation and significant losses. But at the end of the day, he appears to say that the need to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons ability exceeds the risks of retaliation.

The price of oil would shoot through the roof--probably over US $200 a barrel, temporarily. There would be significant economic short term difficulties in the US, Europe, and the rest of the west. Russia and China would be upset, but not enough to retaliate in the open. Behind closed doors is another matter.

The Islamic world would outwardly condemn Israel and the US, while inwardly the Sunni world and moderate Shias would be relieved to not have to face their own nuclear Islamic Civil War.

Iran is only 50% ethnic Persian, and most of them are very unhappy with the leadership of their country. If the west waited long enough, perhaps the leadership would be overthrown anyway. But then, you could have said the same about Hitler in 1930s Germany.

These decisions have serious consequences, either way. Acting, or not acting.

Impending Collapse of North Korea--Will South Korea Step Up to the Plate?

The biggest test of the mettle of the government and people of South Korea will be when North Korea collapses--which according to Jane's Information Group could be as early as the next 6 months.

The day Kim Jong-Il and his family flee North Korea will be a great day for the cause of human rights. Yet it is also a day that leaders in China, South Korea, and the U.S. dread. Chaos and a security nightmare will replace the previous state of brutal stability. And a gargantuan economic bill, to be borne by someone, will then begin to mount.

Once the North Korean police state collapses, it will be impossible to keep the global media out of the Hermit Kingdom. For the first time, the world will get to view the economic and social depravation imposed by the Kim regime. The pressure for wide-ranging humanitarian and economic relief will be immense.

However, government leaders in China, South Korea, and the U.S. will remember the economic consequences of the reunification of Germany. Germany's reunification resulted in a surge in Europe's inflation rate and a tightening of monetary policy in response, which later led to a painful recession. The economic situation in North Korea is even more extreme, a condition the global media won't let the world ignore.

But those are just the beginning of North Korea's costs. Even if the North Korean army were to assist a Chinese or South Korean or American relief force, such an expeditionary relief force would face large logistical challenges. The first task of the expeditionary force would be to find and seize control of North Korea's stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, along with any fissile material. Even with the cooperation of the North Koreans, this would be dangerous work. Add to that crowd control and humanitarian relief, and the costs and risks of the expedition multiply.

The intervention force would have to face the prospect that many officers in North Korea's army and secret police would resist an occupation of the country. Thus, the intervention force might very well have to find and seize control of North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) stockpiles in the face of a terror insurgency armed with these very weapons.____TCSDaily

What a massively collectivist cluster-foque! West Germany was able to absorb East Germany, when its communist government folded. Although South Korea is quite affluent, few global analysts respect South Korea's ability to intervene to prevent massive human disaster.

China has been quite possessive of its "pet pit bull Kim". Is it likely that China would allow US troops to participate in a human relief mission--to save as many N. Koreans from starvation as possible? That question is debatable. China does not want North Korea to fall from its collectivist orbit. The CCP will try to install a puppet government to replace Kim--but will it work? Will the South Koreans have the substance to insist on re-unification on its terms?

The US would like to re-position its troops from the Korean peninsula to better locations. But what is South Korea made of? Can Seoul stand up to Beijing? We will find out, perhaps to our dismay, within years.

World Makes Contingency Plans In Case of Obama Presidency: Preparing for the Worst

Europe and Canada have marshaled armies of scientists to prepare for the worst--in case US voters elect Barack Obama as US President next November. In Norway, a "doomsday vault" is being stocked with seeds, in case a President Obama brings about unprecedented global devastation. British, Swedish, and Chinese scientists are studying the basic mechanisms of control of human ovulation, in what many observers see as an effort to develop a "doomsday vault" for human embryos.

"We would not be so concerned", stated Blythe Manfredson, EU Disaster Planner, "if not for some disturbing revelations coming from the United States. We have learned that Senator Obama's campaign is using deep brain stimulation to influence voting preferences in non-African American voters.""That's patently absurd!" declared an Obama campaign aide heatedly. "We only use DBS on resistant voters--racists! Many Americans willingly--even enthusiastically--vote for Barack, so they don't need the DBS."

EU sources state that they are not reassured by the explanations coming from the Obama campaign. "I would feel much better if the Obama campaign would just stick to the traditional deceptions, false promises, and misleading attacks against opponents. Using DBS is getting too close to unfair manipulation," declared one source, who asked not to be named.

Manfredson denies that she and other government planners are over-reacting to the possibility of an Obama presidency. "Look, we are destroying the European economy on the basis of unproven and unfalsifiable climate models. How could we face the people of Europe if we failed to react to the Obama threat in its turn?"

Other EU officials express concerns that Obama is seen by large segments of the US public as almost a "magic negro", possessing mythical powers to bring about a new millenium for everyone except bad people. "This type of expectation inevitably leads to catastrophe!" declared another anonymous EU source. "Unrealistic belief in a particular "change-bringer" too easily leads to suspension of critical thinking. The danger is particularly dire from charismatic but unproven politicians."

It is not likely that such cautions will be considered by the American public. In fact, most of the American news media itself appears to be in thrall to the first-term senator from Illinois.

"We have to be concerned," insisted Manfredson. "Obama has single-handedly destroyed an American political dynasty that was expected to last decades. He appears unstoppable. Clearly the American public's expectations of what an Obama presidency would mean, in terms of revolutionary justice and change, is completely unrealistic. When the reality sets in, we expect widespread social upheaval--perhaps even civil war in the US."

"The US is the leader of the world, the guarantor of world markets and trade routes," explained Chen Xin, Chinese liason to the EU Disaster Planning Commission. "Although we Chinese wish to replace the US as most powerful nation, it is no one's best interest for the handover of world power to occur by way of calamitous violent change. Despite his powerful charisma, Obama has simply not displayed an ability to lead, so the danger of violent disillusionment and backlash is extreme. We do not expect civil war in America--unless Obama attempts to radically alter the American military."

Meanwhile, the stocking of the doomsday seed vault has been placed at highest priority, as have preparations for stocking a doomsday vault with frozen human embryos. Judging by the actions of international disaster planners, the future of mankind has never looked so bleak.

In China, The Government Recommends Drinking One Glass of Concentrated Sulfuric Acid Every Day

This sad story illustrates the state of industry and public health in central China. If this were your home, would you consider moving to Africa?

"We have 70-80 patients at our hospital at the moment, but during the day, we get about 700 to 800 people a day arriving with the symptoms," a staffer at the Chenxi People's Hospital, who gave only his surname Zhang, told AFP by phone.

"This is due to sulfuric acid poisoning from the local factory."

.....The problem first came to light in early December, when a retired coal miner discovered that his tap water had turned yellow, the report said, quoting an unnamed victim of the poisoning.

The local government later in the month pronounced the area's water safe to drink. But about 10 days ago, growing numbers of local villagers began to fall ill with what hospital staff initially described as flu-like or leukaemia symptoms.

Others had inflamed throats or paralysis.

As more people began arriving at hospitals the local government began to investigate and found the water contaminated with arsenic, tantalum and other dangerous chemicals, it said.

....Chemical spills with serious health consequences are not uncommon in China.

In one of the worst recent examples, a massive chemical plant spill into northeastern China's Songhua River resulted in drinking supplies for millions of residents of Heilongjiang province being cut.

TerraDaily

This is the country that expects to lead the world by the second half of the 21st century! The entire nation is becoming a gigantic wasteland, due to government sanctioned abuse of the air, water, and land. Soon, China will need to invade its neighbors for lebensraum--and clean drinking water. Africa sounds nice....

Chinese Africans: Neo-Colonists?

A new wave of Chinese immigrants are coming to Africa, up to 750,000 of them so far. Many of the new wave immigrants are poor farmers looking for better land and more opportunity. Others are shopkeepers and traders, sensing a chance to fill a neglected niche.

They are settling all over the continent, in rural and urban areas, and are involved in agriculture, construction and trade.

This latest wave of Chinese migrants - thought to total up to 750,000....in the last 10 years are going for economic, not political reasons....They are part of China's bid to secure raw materials and markets for its manufactured goods, but they are also carving out their own opportunities.

Chinese farmers have already started moving to Africa, according to Liu Jianjun of the China-Africa Business Council, which helps Chinese firms find business opportunities in Africa....Mr Liu has personally sent several thousand Chinese people to Africa over the last few years from his home city of Baoding in Hebei Province.

His organisation mainly focuses on setting up agricultural companies, which he calls "Baoding Villages"...These Baoding farmers are working in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Senegal, growing crops with African partners and then turning them into food products.

"Chinese migrants or former labourers on construction sites are opening shops, using their contacts to get cheap goods from China," he says...As an example, he cites the provincial town of Huambo in central Angola, which had no Chinese shops seven years ago...Five years ago there were five and now there are more than 20, says Mr Alden, who has just written a book called China in Africa.

Unsurprisingly, many Chinese migrants themselves say the chance to earn more money is the main motive for leaving their country...Chinese worker Lu Shaoqing, who is helping to build sports stadiums in Angola, says he left his wife and seven-year-old daughter in Beijing for a number of reasons..."I came here because I wanted to see Africa, and Angola is under reconstruction at the moment so I came to help with that," he says.

But he admits the 700-odd Chinese workers in his company have the chance to earn up to three times as much as back home in China.___BBC

Most Chinese immigrants are actually migrants--in Africa for a few years to earn a cash bundle, then back to China. Some sense a longer opportunity, and will likely settle for a longer time. Tropical disease, tribal warfare, and other hazards abound on the dark continent.

In the 19th century, the British imported workers from colonial India. Those Indian workers who settled in Uganda were driven off by Idi Amin in the 1970s. Over time, the same thing may happen to Chinese who settle permanently in troubled multi-tribal sub Saharan nations.

The blatantly obvious need for experienced and disciplined market leadership in most African countries suggests that if a country can find prolonged peace, prosperity is possible with the proper cadre of market savvy traders in place.

Epidemic of Violence by Media Veterans

Normal citizens are becoming alarmed at the flurry of violence by media veterans:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

..."These people could snap at any minute," says James Treacher of the Treacher Institute for Journalist Studies. "We need to get them the help and medication they need before it's too late."...Accounts of media psychopathy, while widespread, have until now been largely anecdotal. In order to provide a more focused and systematic study of the crisis, Iowahawk researchers set out to identify and tabulate criminal arrests and convictions of current and former journalists. While by no means comprehensive, this 10-minute project yielded a grim picture of a once-proud profession now in the grips of tragic, drunk, violent, child-raping rage.

The stories cited in the opening paragraph, while instructive, are by no means isolated. Google searches return hundreds of crimes attributable to workers in America's media industry, and millions of pages containing the terms "journalist" and "murder." They are as shocking in their detail as they are in their number.

....How many unsuspecting American motorists and pedestrians remain at risk from alcoholic media professionals is still a matter of scientific conjecture, but one thing is certain: journalists can be even more deadly outside their cars. Often the journalistic gateway to violent behavior begins with stalking and trespassing -- such as has been alleged of People magazine reporters Jeffrey Neal Weiss, and, in an unrelated incident, Don Sider. But sometimes, as in the case of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, serial stalking behavior goes unpunished and the perpetrators go on to seek more serious thrill-crimes. Journalists recently charged with violent offenses include New York Times reporter and alleged batterer Michael Katz, British reporter Ben Stubbings, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Margaret Gillerman, charged with striking a police officer.

... A shocking number of journalism-related crimes involve child molestation, child pornography, and internet stalking of minors. Journalists recently charged with sickening crimes in this category include Arizona newspaper editor Lindsey Stockton, Arkansas radio reporter Charles "David" Ballard, New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter William Kalec, Former KTTV-TV Los Angeles reporter Rod Bernsen, Washington DC TV weatherman Bill Kamal, and Noel Neff, former editor of the children's magazine Weekly Reader.

In recent times, the national journalist crime spree has taken an increasingly deadly turn. A typical case in point is former Savannah newspaper reporter Donald Lowery, charged with robbing a bank with a sawed-off shotgun. Sometimes arrests are made before bloodshed, such as in the case of Oak Ridge (TN) newspaper reporter and alleged murder plotter Michael Frazier, and former San Francisco AsianWeek columnist Kenneth Eng, arrested for threatening a Virginia Tech-style massacre at a New York University commencement. All too often, though, the warning signs come too late. Recent years witnessed several journalists arrested on murder charges, including longtime Hartford Courant reporter Gregory Robertson and Missouri radio host and reporter James Keown, charged with fatally poisoning his wife by spiking her Gatorade with antifreeze.

...Among the defenders is University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds.

"I think it's unfair to single out journalists as thieves, or violent, or drunks, or child abusers," says Reynolds. "Sometimes they're all of the above."...He cites the case of Kevin Lee Pettiford, a Knoxville journalist charged with abducting and threatening to kill three minor girls during a drunken high speed chase to an attempted bank robbery.

Iowahawk

Truly, the North American public is at serious risk from violent media veterans--the scummiest of the scummy.
;-)

Barack Obama: A Brief Bio Part I

Barack Obama is an extremely articulate US Senator from Illinois, who happens to be running for US President in 2008. He is currently in his first Senate term, so Obama is not well known to most US voters. In order that abu al-fin readers can get a better grasp of Senator Obama's background, this brief bio is presented:

Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii to Stanley Ann Dunham from Kansas who moved to Hawaii and there married Muslim, Barack Obama, Sr. a black student from Kenya...Obama’s dad...left his wife and two-year-old Obama to work on a Ph.D. at Harvard. He returned to Kenya to take a lucrative government job and another wife. He ended up fathering eight children by four different women, not all could be counted as wives.

...Obama’s white mother then married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim student at the University of Hawaii who moved the family to Indonesia when Obama was six. After his drinking and womanizing stepfather died, the family moved back to Hawaii when Obama was in the fifth grade. During those years, Obama lived in nice neighborhoods and attended the best schools until he was graduated from high school.

...Barack Obama is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ....The pastor is Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. who baptized Obama into the church 20 years ago. The United Church of Christ was formed by the 1957 merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church;

...Dr. Wright...preaches that Zionism is racism and has compared Israel with South Africa of 20 years ago. On the Sunday following the attack on America, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of American policies. He also said, “In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” as quoted in the Oct., 2003 issue of The Trumpet Newsmagazine, edited by Wright’s daughter....

Wright....said of Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now.” ...

Canada Free Press

Obviously, Senator Obama had an interesting childhood, and currently associates with some rather colourful characters. In a later post, we will go into some of Obama's public statements and actions in more detail.

MIT / Johns Hopkins / Lancet Corruption Scandal Update: George Soros Moneybags

The most recent news concerning the corruption scandal involving Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet, a UK medical journal, leads us directly to George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Timesonline

So this is how much MIT, Johns Hopkins, and The Lancet can be bought for--to influence a US election? Pathetic.

Can George Soros buy your vote? No, a better way to put it: could George Soros have already bought your vote--and you did not even know it?

Politics and the Corruption of a Formerly Prestigious Medical Journal

As a trained epidemiologist, I regret being forced by the Lancet to reveal the underlying sleaziness of a sub-layer of the epidemiologic profession, as well as medical journalism. When the Lancet published its reports on Iraqi civilian casualties[pdf]--immediately before the US 2006 mid-term elections--it was clear to me that the authors had taken some unwarranted shortcuts in methodology. What was even clearer, was that the Lancet editorial staff was willing to overlook the methodologic deficiencies of the report, and publish anyway--just in time to influence the US elections. Since then, I have had no respect for the Lancet.

How to explain the enormous discrepancy between The Lancet's estimation of Iraqi war deaths and those from studies that used other methodologies? For starters, the authors of the Lancet study followed a model that ensured that even minor components of the data, when extrapolated over the whole population, would yield huge differences in the death toll. Skeptical commentators have highlighted questionable assumptions, implausible data, and ideological leanings among the authors, Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, and Les Roberts.

...Lafta had been a child-health official in Saddam Hussein's ministry of health when the ministry was trying to end the international sanctions against Iraq by asserting that many Iraqis were dying from hunger, disease, or cancer caused by spent U.S. depleted-uranium shells remaining from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 2000, Lafta authored at least two brief articles contending that U.N. sanctions had caused many deaths by starvation among Iraqi children.

...Little is known about Lafta's decision-making in amassing the data for the Lancet surveys....Even though the second study was even further out of line with other sources' estimates than the first, it got tremendous attention -- probably because its findings fit an emerging narrative: Iraq was a horrific mess....Democrats who had opposed Bush's Iraq campaign embraced the report. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for example, issued a statement saying that the "new study is a chilling and somber reminder of the unacceptably high human cost of this war.... We must not stay on the same failed course any longer." Such remarks, amplified by myriad articles, broadcasts, and blogs, helped to cement Americans' increasingly negative perceptions of the war. "For those who wanted to believe it, it gave them a new number to circulate, [and] it was a defining moment" in attitudes toward the war, said pollster John Zogby, who commended the report in a CNN interview.

...In the Middle East, both Sunni and Shiite Islamist groups have used the study to bolster their claims that the West is waging a war against Islam. In an October 30, 2007, debate on Al Jazeera, for example, an Egyptian cleric, Sheik Ibrahim al-Khouli, slammed a Syrian author's criticism of fundamentalist Islam. The United States and Europe had "fought in Iraq and destroyed it," he said. They "killed one and a half million people ... [and] killed a million Iraqi children during the [1990s sanctions] siege; left traces of enriched uranium from the weapons that were used [in 1991]; and destroyed the environment for the next 35 billion years, according to American estimates."

...the authors have declined to provide the surveyors' reports and forms that might bolster confidence in their findings. Customary scientific practice holds that an experiment must be transparent -- and repeatable -- to win credence. Submitting to that scientific method, the authors would make the unvarnished data available for inspection by other researchers. Because they did not do this, citing concerns about the security of the questioners and respondents, critics have raised the most basic question about this research: Was it verifiably undertaken as described in the two Lancet articles?

"The authors refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data," said David Kane, a statistician and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Statistics at Harvard University. Some critics have wondered whether the Iraqi researchers engaged in a practice known as "curb-stoning," sitting on a curb and filling out the forms to reach a desired result. Another possibility is that the teams went primarily into neighborhoods controlled by anti-American militias and were steered to homes that would provide information about the "crimes" committed by the Americans.

National Journal

This Lance/Johns Hopkins article has become a cluster fuck--damning politically interested medical journalism, the Lancet, epidemiology, Johns Hopkins, and specifically damning the authors of the study.

It seems likely that Lafta--a former Saddam Hussein official--has been faking his research ever since the first Gulf War in 1991. Lafta's co-authors allowed their political leanings to influence their judgment. The Lancet's editors allowed their anti-Americanism to bring them to the precipice of journalistic integrity--and they stepped over the brink.

It is a sad story of corruption, sleaze, failed ethics, and lost journalistic integrity and reputation. It will be instructive to see how the mainstream media covers the aftermath of a journalistic catastrophe that they themselves elevated to monumental proportions when they believed the story to be true.