The analysis over Kerry’s performance continues now that the campaign has kicked into full gear with Kerry and Bush on the trail in various battleground states. The polls that are out point in different directions and I am reluctant to draw a conclusion from them, it seems that post-convention bounces are short lived phenomena anyway so we shouldn't attach too much value to them. The BBC has a round-up of European reactions:

A recurring theme in the European press is that Mr Kerry needs to polish up his personal charisma a bit more if he wants to persuade his compatriots that he has what it takes to be president.

Coming right after the convention this must be a devastating comment and it certainly echoes what I have said earlier. In the absence of a strong platform of ideas and a lack of charisma or natural ability to connect with the American electorate, Kerry’s efforts to make his case and persuade voters are beginning to look somewhat desperate. It may be a bit early in the cycle but barring a major disaster this election could be Bush’s to lose.

UPDATE: California Yankee picks up on Newsweek's story that the post-convention bounce is nothing more than a "baby-bounce". He also has lots of other posts on the challenged Kerry campaign.

Environmentalists, unions, anti-globalists may on their own no longer be the strongest force to fight corporate expansion, together they can form a potent coalition to take on engines of economic growth, notably that symbol of American capitalist expansion: Wal-Mart. In addition various towns and cities have joined the fight in a quest to preserve the rural character of their communities, and in Canada that coalition can feed on an additional force: anti-Americanism. Yet, Wal-Mart hasn’t exactly been bruised by all these attempts to stifle its growth; they have been pretty successful in expanding their network in the US and Canada. One of the pillars of its success has been to take on unions and in doing so it not only is able to increase its performance by aligning management and employees, it also is taking on one of the key constituents of the coalition that opposes it. Last year they scored a victory against unions in Manitoba, earlier this year a masterstroke ensured that Wal-Mart could open a big outlet on Vancouver Island.

How did they achieve this? Elizabeth Nickson reports that native Indian bands invited the retailer onto their reserves, allowing Wal-Mart to circumvent unions and environmental and rezoning regulations. As Nickson notes, it drove a wedge right through the anti-Wal-Mart coalition as environmentalists realized they couldn’t pick a fight with their natural allies: native Indians. On a number of occasions I have pointed to the economic benefits of Wal-Mart's wealth and efficiency generating machine and Nickson points to a report from McKinsey which provides some numbers to back-up that claim:

The august McKinsey Consulting Group in their report, The Wal-Mart Effect, estimates that the retailer's focus on low prices and its constant stream of money-saving innovations accounted for up to 25% of the U.S. economy's productivity gains during the '90s. Warren Buffet believes that Wal-Mart contributes more to the health of the U.S. economy than Microsoft. The Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga reports that a study sponsored by Wal-Mart but conducted by the Los Angeles Country Economic Development Corporation estimates that "Wal-Mart's entry into the local market would save county shoppers about US$1.78-billion annually, and southern California shoppers US$3.76-billion annually or nearly US$600 per household. Those savings, redirected to other spending would create up to 36,000 jobs, compared with the maximum of 5,000 jobs lost among competitors."

What the native band in Canada has essentially done is providing Wal-Mart exactly with the centerpiece of its path to success: taking advantage of a highly unregulated environment. The McKinsey numbers can easily be replicated in other geographical areas and once more provide evidence that a dearth of regulation in the long run provides huge benefits to society. True, there are aesthetic and valid environmental concerns that should always be taken into account when giving Wal-Mart access to operate its business, but it seems that a band of native Indians, in Canada no less, have provided the latest installment in a phenomenon that’s running out of steam: the war against Wal-Mart.

At long last I have updated the about section. It's pretty boring and factual, like a corporate bio, but I believe that's what it should be. Also, despite some requests, I have decided against a comments feature and it seems I am not the only one with doubts about this phenomenon. In my case the primary argument against it is time, really. But reader e-mail is not only more than welcome, I look forward to feedback and most e-mailers will see their comments reflected back in some post. Just click 'Talk to Peaktalk' on the upper right. Thanks for checking in to the Peak.

The expectation levels were high here over at the Dorsman household as this was the moment that Kerry could position himself as a veritable presidential candidate, bring in the doubters and lay out a platform that could challenge Bush. The packaging was complete with a lot of make-up (I was worried over the eyebrows, really it looked disastrous), fellow Vietnam veterans, a strategically positioned Bob Rubin and a salute, the latter a debacle as Kerry probably never picked up Ronald Reagan’s lesson: “pick it up and throw it away”. The "reporting for duty" was a risky gamble, "at your service" would have been a better line.

Yet the package in which Kerry was delivered to the Fleet Center served mainly one purpose, to give Kerry all the attributes that lacked during the primaries and that most of us know he doesn’t really have: the capability and vision to act as a centrist wartime leader who connects with middle America in an easy way. The introduction by Max Cleland, which was good, and the youthful bashing entrance were all there to present an image that Kerry is not able to present naturally. In a way it puzzles the mind that presidents that never saw a battlefield have a far stronger military aura, Reagan and George W. Bush’s association with things military has always been flawless and spontaneous. So if the unnatural approach failed it had to be the content and I have to say, here he fared much better. There were at least three instances where I got excited. His direct words to Bush that the country’s most sacred document, the constitution, shouldn’t be abused for political purposes, the reference to his hope that instead of having God on America’s side the hope that America was on God’s side, but most interestingly the argument that America should be united. This in my mind was the most effective swipe at the Bush administration, patriotism belongs to all of us, we’re all in this war, and no party can claim exclusivity to this deeply emotional issue. By sheer numbers alone there must have been an equal number of Democrats and Republicans that died on September 11. Kerry got that and brought it out forcefully in his speech, it was effective.

Yet, there were few practical suggestions on how to win this war other than the widely optimistic assumption that once Kerry enters the West Wing various disgruntled allies will bury the hatchet and team up with America in battlefields across the world. Not the likeliest of scenarios and that is what Kerry should have given to his listeners, especially to those that are directly involved in the fight. Practical ideas abounded on the domestic side, from creative alternatives to putting someone in prison for the rest of his life to floating some taxation ideas. And then there were some cheap shots suggesting the Saudi Royal family was Bush’s first port of call for new energy solutions, the pharmaceutical industry got a hit for always suspiciously enriching themselves, and yes, Enron, years after its demsie did make it into the speech as well. Domestically Kerry positioned himself on the left, on foreign policy he tried to capture the right and gain some of the Bush post 9/11 momentum. That however doesn’t make a compelling centrist.

Yet, even I could construe for myself the notion that Kerry probably will get it right on foreign policy once he’s in office, it’s a skill that is best developed once a President is confronted by crises and forced by events to chart a course. Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush they were all domestic guys that learned once tested. The Clinton/Rubin analogy might also work, once in office Kerry would no doubt tread very careful on social-economic issues, a likely Republican congress would not give him an awful lot of room either. A recovery 1990s style could be in the cards, who knows. Still, having made these arguments John Kerry to me hardly is a compelling candidate, he has to pull out all the plugs to be liked, to be loved and really needs each and every person in his clan to tell the world that he really is a great guy. If you need that much validation – and it reminds me of Al Gore who tried everything, so hold on for Kerry-the-Chameleon in the next three months – you do have a problem. He’s not natural, his soul is not in this venture, he’s not connecting, and he isn’t really liked, unlike his vigorous and telegenic running mate. Kerry could clinch the election on domestic issues; narrowly lose on the war and foreign policy so the tipping point would have to be his personality. The answer to his ability to win the latter was given last night by the unnatural, soulless candidate. You could have packed an entire army division on that stage and it wouldn’t have helped him one bit. On the contrary.

Given the inordinate amount of traffic Europe in a Nutshell generated I have always been on the look-out for more similar nutshells depicting a country or a continent. Earlier this week Trudeaupia provided one for Canada when he analyzed Canada’s education system, concluding:

This is the depressing thing about this country. It appears the system may very well be producing imbeciles in sufficient quantities to sustain itself.

Very likely. Political reform starts with the young ones and feeding them over the top politically correct dogmas from a very early age is not only detrimental to a country, it doesn’t equip those growing up with a skill-set to compete in a free and competitive world. That’s why in the Dorsman household Hayek and Friedman to name a few are mandatory reading alongside the Very Hungry Caterpillar. And Finding Nemo from time to time will have to compete with reruns of Reagan speeches. You can’t start too early.

Michael Totten is back from his trip to North Africa and makes it clear he intends to ignore both the Democratic and Republican conventions arguing there’s no news to be had. I agree with him that events are too scripted but they are still newsworthy, if not for content than certainly for continuous entertainment. However Totten commits to take on the struggle that many in the center face:

I’m going to build two separate cases: The liberal case for Bush and the hawkish case for Kerry. Both strike me as dubious, and will strike most other people as dubious too. But I don’t have anything else to work with here. The liberal case for Kerry is obvious. The conservative case for Bush is equally so. You don’t need me to explain either one and, besides, neither speak to my concerns at this time.

It’s going to be a hard choice for the radical centrists this year.

One of the terms that keeps resurfacing in the left-right or liberal-conservative debate is the notion of “multiculturalism”. Adopted by the left, rejected by the right, revered in politically correct paradises such as Canada and Western Europe it has now a very negative connotation rather than what it should it have been. The concept originally was taken to mean the following:

“ … a view that immigrants, and others, should preserve their cultures and the different cultures should interact peacefully within one nation”

That’s the official policy in countries like Canada and Australia, the US with its unique melting pot never really bothered with the concept. Europeans in recent years have been taken by surprise that many temporary immigrants decided to stay and failed to melt-in and preserved a little too much of their respective cultures. Combined with demographic trends their presence started to contribute to domestic instability and these days many European countries are struggling with finding a solution to potent integration and assimilation problems. From a purely practical perspective I see no harm in the basic concept of multiculturalism, on the contrary, I laud places where a plethora of cultures, languages and religions thrive side by side, I have enjoyed that in my native Rotterdam, in London, in Hong Kong and now in Vancouver.

The problem arises when multiculturalism mutates into cultural relativism, a term best described as downplaying your own culture in order to accommodate other cultures. A great example is the forced description of “Christmas” as “Holidays”, as wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” these days may offend his or her cultural and religious sensitivities. This of course is utter nonsense as it speaks for itself that we should not denigrate, attack or otherwise insult a Muslim or Sikh, but to a priori act as if we have can only lead to a complete negation of our own culture. The term “Christmas” is even for the secular among us a tradition and festive benchmark, “I am dreaming of White Holidays” will wipe away one of the most treasured North American songs and with it an easily identifiable cultural icon. If we abandon our own heritage of shared traditions, what will take its place? Some call this form of revising one’s own culture “self- inflicted loathing”, here’s the ParaPundit:

If the intellectuals of Western societies do not regain some sense of belief in their own cultures and ethnicities as things worth defending then they are going to be outnumbered and eventually ruled over by people who do not suffer from self-inflicted loathing of their own identities.

Well, many intellectuals and writers have been working hard to help us regain some self confidence but the self-loathing concept has deep origins and is hard to neutralize. The embarrassment over fascism in Europe, the feelings of guilt over decades of colonialism and in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand a compulsive need to adjust past wrongs vis-à-vis the native populations all have contributed to turning the admirable notion of multiculturalism into the despicable practice of cultural relativism. The former by the way doesn’t necessarily mean that all cultures in one geographical are on an equal footing, the dominant culture allows and protects the rights of other cultures to be what they want to be within a certain legal framework. To preserve your culture doesn’t mean to celebrate it to the detriment of others.

That particular framework can have many features, such as allowing certain groups to adopt their own rules for arbitrage, shari’a being one of them, as long as they do not contravene the basic constitutional structure of the country in question. Things get off the rails when one of the basic Western tenets such as the separation of church and state is abandoned to accommodate a particular minority. That’s where you start to compromise the neutrality of the very law that seeks to let various ethnic and religious groups co-exist. There are many more examples I can give, my favorite one being imams fully exercising their right to free speech by calling on Muslim men to ensure that their women stay at home to do housework and forego the education opportunities offered to them by their hosts. There’s some cultural tension there and it’s not one that will get resolved in a pleasant way.

As politically incorrect as it may often seem these days, there is nothing wrong with fulfilling the basic human need to identify with and celebrate a culture. It strengthens the individual and allows it to interact with other cultures in a confident manner. Cultural relativism negates that basic human premise and in view of the fact that other cultures practice the very opposite of that relativism it may endanger and threaten the “relativist” culture with extinction, especially when demographics play a part. Many Western European countries are unable to come to grips with this phenomenon; attempts to introduce the melting pot so far have yielded opposite results. Yielding to cultural relativism is no answer either, but building a sustainable multicultural society with some mandatory melting-pot features most probably is.

Colby Cosh yesterday reminded me of something I always confidently state as a matter of fact, but was never entirely sure of: the Dutch are on average the tallest people in the world, and, they’re getting taller and heavier. Although this article doesn’t give any particular reasons as to why the Dutch are so tall based on my own experience I would venture excessive dairy consumption from cradle to grave. And if you think being tall is an asset I challenge you to try and buy a shirt with extra-long sleeves anywhere in the world, it's the ultimate test for this Dutchman.

If you think of launching a new weblog you would have to carve out a niche for yourself, providing something that no one else is covering. Arthur Chrenkoff has done that by taking the simplest of concepts: good news. I commend him for spending the time on finding stuff that few of us bother to write about, the things that go right, the things work, the things that generate hope. This week he’s found a lot of it in Afghanistan.

… and Stephen Green fisks the effort. It has always struck me that Sullivan’s approach to US politics differs when he’s writing for non-US media compared to his blog or articles he pens for other American outlets. It therefore doesn’t surprise me that his move to Kerry was unveiled in a British newspaper. Although he is entitled to his view and dispensing advice to voters, I question the Kerry overture and its timing, as it flies in the face of most of what he has argued about Bush and Kerry over the past few years. If anything, if you would extrapolate Andrew’s thinking then a vote for Bush – no matter how much you dislike him for abandoning real conservative positions – would be crucial in cementing support for the pro-active approach the president has taken in the War on Terror. That war is the core challenge of our time and a point reiterated almost daily on, yes, the Daily Dish. To take Andrew’s advice and throw our weight behind Kerry because of the (failed) FMA, Abu Ghraib and the budget would send the wrong signal to the outside world as it would imply that the American voter clearly repudiates the efforts in especially Afghanistan and Iraq. By supporting Bush, voters this year will support the War on Terror, which with all its flaws and problems, is in far better hands of the diligent, committed, experienced and focused Bush team. That has been Sullivan’s argument until very recently, and now he shifted his support in an uninformed way (we still have to see what comes out of this week’s DNC in terms of policy positions) to a man whom he despised only a number of months ago.

I started reading blogs during the 2000 Florida recount when I saw Sullivan on CNN and to this day he remains my first port of call in the morning, or late at night when his next-day posts are up. That will continue unabated, he’s a great writer and I agree with most of what he says but his latest move, in Andrew’s own words, seems a little unhinged.

UPDATE: Andrew responds, Katie has a great round-up of reactions across the sphere and over at Michelle's there's a debate over Andrew's pledge week. I have always pitched into Andrew's pledge drives as part of my round of Christmas gifts and will continue to do so, his debate generating capabilities alone are worth quite a few bucks.

Last week I argued that the Left had adopted quite a number of anti-Semitic themes in this post, which generated quite a few reactions. Oliver Kamm (hat tip: Penny) discusses a similar trend by zeroing in on the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP):

It is my considered view that the SWP is best described as a fascist party of the Left, even without taking into account the Islamist connections that have brought the party such scorn on the liberal Left. It has, moreover, a striking characteristic in common with the far Right: an increasingly overt antisemitism.

Marxism 2004? Zionism is my Enemy? It’s but a small step to complete the coalition with some Islamists, unionists and anti-globalists. They may be on the fringe in the UK but in many other countries parties like this are well organized and represented, in The Netherlands for instance the “Socialistiese Partij” has 8 MPs in a 150-seat parliament, a not so insignificant 5.3% of the vote. And while they are not openly anti-Semitic they leave no doubt as to where they stand with regards to Israel's right to defend itself.

The Democratic Convention kicked-off today and it will be the first convention to be blogged, Dan Drezner has a great round-up of convention related blogs and blogging initiatives. More evidence that big media is catching on. I will pen my thoughts on Kerry’s anointment later this week, when we will hopefully have a better sense of the agenda that will underpin his campaign.

We should have been paying more attention. That’s in a nutshell what the 9/11 Report told us. As early as 1995 many pundits initially pointed to Islamists as the likely culprits in the Oklahoma City bombings. At that point in time we were apparently already quite aware of them, the threat they posed and their willingness to strike in the American heartland, targeting civilians. Between that point in time and 9/11 we saw a proliferation of terror from various Islamist groups and notably al-Qaeda, in particular the attacks on the US embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole, but still we failed to act. Now we’re acting but as we are doing so it looks like we are again failing to pay attention to an even more lethal threat that a conventional al-Qaeda: a nuclear Iran.

And it’s not that the warning signs aren’t there. To remind us Michael Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, Andrew Sullivan, David Warren, Danielle Pletka and I am sure many others last week reiterated the abject failure of a policy of constructive engagement which the US, which to a large extent has been relying on European nations and the IAEA to do the work, has been pursuing. It is apparent that these attempts have been futile and have not accomplished the goal of neutralizing Iran, on the contrary. Engaging totalitarian entities is a complex task on any given day, but when regimes like the one in Iran are in a flux it becomes an even more unpredictable exercise. As long as the hard-liners have the upper hand over the reformers in the domestic struggle, which is what it seems like in Tehran today, they will invariably legitimize their position by becoming even more radical and forcing fearful doubters to follow suit. Such radicalization can take many forms and can range from extreme prosecution of dissidents to aiding terrorists to justifying their historic mission by arming the county to the fullest extent possible. Whatever form it takes, there’s a two-tiered outcome. On the domestic side forces for freedom will suffer even harder repression and externally there will be an intensification of staking out the key enemy: the free world, or to be more specific, the USA and its few remaining allies.

The bottom line is that we can’t sit idly by the side gambling on the reformers at some point getting the upper hand or even riskier, hoping that engaging a few reasonable hardliners will save the day. Krauthammer is especially clear in where we should be headed, sponsor a revolution or act pre-emptively noting that we can’t really expect Israel to do all of the dirty work. Strong meat sure, but it highlights the need to move fast. Before any meaningful action can be initiated however there needs to be awareness, especially on the part of the Bush administration, that Iran is on the radar screen. I agree, bombing Tehran is not the wisest way to kick-off a re-election campaign but the President should at the very least be able to communicate to the electorate that this time he is paying attention.

Like in so many other places it is sunny and hot out here, yet still quite a lot of activity on the business side. I was hoping to produce a few more old style long Peaktalk essays, one on the issue of multiculturalism, but so far haven’t found the time to get into it. More next week, with hopefully some more elaborate stuff. I leave you with the factoid of the week below, the green fairy.

When going through some of the Dutch newswires this morning I was intrigued by the report that a Dutch court had released the “green fairy”. Thinking some dangerous and eccentric environmentalist had been released back onto the streets I was surprised to find out that:

Amsterdam Court lifted a ban on the use of absinthe that was imposed on the green drink, known sometimes in Dutch as the green fairy, in 1909. The court said Dutch law had been overtaken by European regulations. Absinthe may now be sold on the condition that the working substance thujone remains within European-accepted levels. Absinthe is a green liqueur that has a bitter anise or liquorice flavour and a high alcohol content. It has been accused and accredited with having mind-alerting qualities and was a favourite in Bohemian circles in the 19th century. It is prepared from the herb absinthe and other herbs, but was banned in many countries because of its toxicity.

So much for Dutch tolerance, from 1909 to 2004 it was illegal to drink or sell absinthe. A Dutch liquor retailer had a bottle confiscated by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority and took his case to court where he was vindicated, so long as he stays within European guidelines, of course.

With a doubling of domestic marihuana consumption over a period of 13 years, the Canadian government has set out to reintroduce legislation to decriminalize pot later this year. But before libertarians and liberal-conservatives start jumping up and down let me point to a few caveats here. First, as Vice Squad points out, the plans will focus on decriminalization of the possession of soft drugs up to a certain level, ie. you could still get a ticket for possession if you carry up to 15 grams of the stuff, more severe penalties are likely if you are caught with more. Secondly, and here’s my peeve, any hint at liberalization in order to let citizens take their own responsibilities was quashed in a week when the new Health Minister announced that his mandate would be to stem “the tide of privatization” in healthcare. While seemingly unrelated these two issues point to the fact that the Liberals are liberal in name only, even liberalization on the margins of the government monopoly on healthcare is improbable and the move on pot is piecemeal at best.

Not a lot of time today to discuss the 9/11 Commission Report and its findings, but do check out Jeff Jarvis' comments, scroll down and find his thoughts on how he has changed since 9/11, a must read.

The huge dividend announced by Microsoft this week, combined with a multi-year share repurchase program, appears to be a final admission that the money printing machine from Redmond has reached its ceiling in terms of growth. The company has not been able to identify opportunities to further increase shareholder value and has chosen to do what is best in a situation like this: return cash directly to the shareholders. That’s the simple business analysis, but it appears that the decision is also tax-driven:

"The prospect of Senator Kerry becoming president could be viewed by some companies as an incentive to pay out dividends this year," said Garay, who said he could not discuss Microsoft because it is a Deloitte audit client. "It would be even more of an incentive for closely held companies whose owners will be directly affected" by large dividend payments, he added, saying that there could be a flood of such dividends declared after a Kerry victory if there appeared to be a good chance the tax law would be changed.

As one of the largest shareholders Bill Gates is likely to reap 3 billion dollars from this arrangement and if the dividend tax rate were to be raised back to 35 percent for high-income taxpayers as Kerry might do, Gates would pay a tax of $1.05 billion, or $600 million more than under the current tax laws. Gates is planning to divert the proceeds of this "super-dividend" to his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supporting the notion that if governments keep cutting taxes and roll back public programs, somehow the private sector will pick up the slack. Now there’s a campaign theme for Bush.

Like Megan, I do not have an awful lot to add to the Sandy Berger saga. However I can suggest a possible line of defense the former NSC head can use to justify his unfortunate behaviour:

"I tried to walk a fine line between leaving the classified documents on the table and stuffing them in my trousers. But I recognize that I did not fully accomplish that goal”

This remains the classic Clintonist line of defense, by adding “inadvertent” to this argument he will have a watertight explanation for his actions.

Hardly surprising, but disappointing nevertheless, the South-Africanization of Israel by the UN. The vote of the UN General Assembly yesterday calls on Israel to dismantle its security fence as requested by the International Court of Justice. The vote was 150-6, the US dissenting and Canada abstaining, but the European bloc voted in favor after some last moment tweaking of the language in order to line up all European nations behind this resolution. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman left the meeting in a fury, which is what he usually does after UN get-togethers discussing Israel, and commented:

“It is simply outrageous to respond with such vigor to a measure that saves lives and responds with such casual indifference and apathy to the ongoing campaign of Palestinian terrorism that takes lives. This is not justice but a perversion of justice”

Yes. Now we have to bear in mind that the UN General Assembly is unlikely to ignore a majority ruling of its own court and that the resolution is non-binding, so it hasn’t got the teeth to make life really difficult for Israel. A referral to the Security Council to make it binding would be fruitless: the US would veto it instantly. However the symbolic value shouldn’t be underestimated, it will give the Palestinian leadership a false sense of victory and it will embolden many others to finger Israel as a violator of international law, a country worthy of sanctions. These implications will in turn make peace ever harder to achieve and from that perspective the UN has failed to make a meaningful contribution to resolve this lingering conflict. Over to the White House.

And, if you wanted to have a good reason for Israel’s security fence , Yael has made a list of 987 very good reasons.

Last year I wrote:

In my view (and some proud British have ridiculed me for this), the Dutch have historically been closer to the Anglo-Saxon world than any other continental European country (… ) The irony is that now that the Anglo-Saxon minded Dutch are moving to the right and are retooling their economy free-market style, they at the same time are giving up that reclaimed sense of free destiny by committing to join a European federal state.

According to the Economist this week the Dutch have finally started to look very critically at their position in Europe and are now one of the continent’s most Euro-skeptic countries. There’s always been doubt about the merits of the rapid moves towards the formation of a centralized European entity in The Netherlands but like so many other topics it was one that suffered from a debate-stifling mix of voter apathy and political correctness: either there was no real interest in the debate or it was pointless to raise the issue with the political establishment.

The Fortuyn legacy, the salient pieces of which have now been adopted by various political parties, is a major contributor to this renewed Dutch vigor vis-à-vis things European. Some have put forward the notion of alienation and loss of nationhood, both sentiments that are compounded by the Dutch having to give up their treasured guilder in return for a currency that has made life much more expensive for the average citizen. A referendum, the first in my lifetime, on the draft European constitution is now scheduled for early 2005 and the results according to the Economist may have serious implications:

A Dutch no would in some ways mark a more profound crisis for the EU than a British or Polish rejection. To be sure, Britain is a big country, but it has always been part of an awkward squad. If the sensible Dutch start turning up their noses at an EU treaty, it would be final confirmation that Euroscepticism has spread from the Anglo-Nordic fringe to the very heart of the Union.

And it would furthermore challenge the notion that compliance and apathy have turned Europe into a lost cause as I have argued before. There’s a glimmer of hope that the Dutch may be daring enough to relegate the draft EU constitution to the dustbin of history, but don’t count on it yet.

David Frum has returned temporarily to the National Post and (subscriber only) produced a somewhat weak explanation for the failure of Canada’s Conservatives to meet the high expectations in last month’s federal election. Frum doesn’t accept the claim that the presence of social conservatives in the campaign scared voters in Ontario into voting Liberal. He may be right when he argues that certain ridings would have gone conservative regardless of Randy White’s comments on gay marriage and urban Ontario was never conservative territory anyway. Maybe, but it strikes me that the discussions around gay marriage and especially abortion have an impact on many middle-of -the-roaders who, women in particular, could have helped a decisive swing to conservatives in many ridings. Frum prefers healthcare as one of the more poignant reasons that so many got scared of the unknown and by default voted liberal again. I argued the absence of meaningful healthcare debate before and Frum notes that many Liberal voters know the system is seriously broken but:

They know all these things – but they don’t like them. They wish they were not true. And they stand ready to punish any politician they see acting on them.

There you have it: a fear so deep that even in the presence of evidence to the contrary, Canadians can’t make up their minds to vote for someone who wants to fix that system. On the contrary, we better continue to suffer the current situation with all it failings rather than creatively try and work to repair it. But hold on, did anyone come out and say that they were going to fix it? No. The conservatives failed miserably in engaging their opponents in a real debate on healthcare, however it takes guts in a country where people relish maltreatment to come out and say that there are ways to improve things.

One of the outstanding items since my return has been the traditional “rolling the roll” and I have put some serious thought into it this time, really. Hence four blogroll categories on the right: the essential (often but not always daily) reads labeled “The Core”, followed by three separate rolls whose descriptions should speak for themselves: “Regional Expertise”, “Specialists” and finally “Regular & Remarkable”. Needless to say these rolls will be rolled when there’s reason to do so.

The trial of the murderers of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zarah Kazemi has ended abruptly and forced the Canadian foreign ministry to now make good on its threat to recall its Ambassador to Tehran back to Ottawa:

After foreign observers were initially barred, several, including Canadian ambassador Philip MacKinnon and other diplomats, were allowed to attend the session. On Sunday, however, they were blocked from entering the courtroom and the trial was abruptly ended, with the court saying it would issue a verdict at an unspecified later date.

Disappointing but not surprising, and there’s a likely cover-up with Tehran prosecutor Mortazavi playing a duplicitous role:

The Canadian government has also raised the prospect of Mr. Mortazavi's involvement, and reformists have accused him of a coverup. The bill of indictment, which has cleared Mr. Bakhshi of any wrongdoing and implicated Mr. Ahmadi in the murder, was prepared by the hardline Tehran Prosecutor's Office.

Crimes like this will not get resolved until Iran’s hardline mullahs are forced out of power, until then the involved parties are not likely to see justice.

One of the things that, historically speaking, always ended up in tears, defeat and disaster was the West supporting and propping up dictators who we thought represented our best interests. Yasser Arafat has for the past decades received not only a red carpet treatment wherever he went, his corrupt Palestinian Authority could count on generous support from a variety of western nations and multilateral institutions as he was perceived to be the only likely ticket to an Israeli-Palestinian peace arrangement. I don’t know if it would qualify as an intelligence failure, but we should have seen long ago that Arafat was a very unlikely partner for peace. And I am not referring to his continued support for terrorism, no his disastrous rule in the occupied areas is so corrupt, reckless and violent that it should have been a red flag ages ago. Now, his own people have taken up arms against him, in a link filled post Meryl Yourish summarizes what happened and ends on a wry note: the world will probably blame Israel, which takes me to my next post …

Trudeaupia links to this interesting piece about everyday anti-Semitism and his sentiments are mine entirely. The return of anti-Semitism in particular in Europe is largely due to the fact that a generation has passed since the atrocities of the Holocaust took place and with that passing the deep feelings of guilt towards Jews and consequently the unmitigated support for the state of Israel have largely subsided. But that’s only part of the story, the large and growing number of Muslims on the continent are primarily the new carriers of the invective against Jews, here’s historian Diana Pinto:

Let there be no misunderstanding. We live since 2001 in an extremely dangerous world where a new type of anti-Semitism among some Muslims has surfaced, whose tenets are worthy of the worst Nazi propaganda, and whose hatred is no longer aimed at Israeli "Zionists" but at the entire Jewish people.

But she goes on to say that this is not necessarily linked to criticism leveled against Israel by Europe’s Left:

This genuine and dangerous anti-Semitism should not be confused with the unsavoury critiques against Israel which can be found in the ranks of Europe's left-wing or with the often unpalatable Holocaust "fatigue" which many Europeans, in Germany in particular, may be experiencing.

Well, the lines are very blurred these days I think. Europe’s Left has vigorously adopted an anti-Israel message that on the one hand has emboldened Europe’s Muslims to engage in violent anti-Semitic behaviour; on the other hand it has very often crossed the line into the use of abject language reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. And not just in Europe. When I was on my blogging break a furor erupted over a Canadian anti-globalist newspaper called Adbusters which felt it appropriate to publish a list of American neo-conservatives and marking those that were Jewish with an asterisk, implying that US foreign policy was dictated by Jewish interests, echoing similar claims by Hitler’s propaganda machine 60 years ago. I am currently reading The Right Nation where writers John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge remind us that there are indeed many Jews in the neo-con ranks and that there’s a good and plausible reason for it:

“The neocons hated what was happening to America’s universities, the institutions that had lifted them out of the ghetto. How could the high priests of America’s temples of reason stand by idly by while students trashed university property? How could people who were supposed to care about intellectual standards agree to the introduction of quotas? Criticizing the war in Vietnam was all very well, but how could these overprivileged brats burn the American flag? How could they argue that America was always wrong and its critics always right? Knee-jerk anti-Americanism was particularly offensive to people whose families escaped the Holocaust only because they emigrated to America.

And that’s where I feel we are talking about a re-alignment. Anti-Semitism is no longer just attacking Jews or the State of Israel. That practice has aligned itself with an anti-Western, anti-capitalist message that originates from the remnants of what once was a thriving and racially tolerant left-liberal movement. It has become an all encompassing tool to attack the very fundamentals that have allowed poor Jews and holocaust survivors to lift themselves out of misery and into a better life: freedom. That’s why it’s no longer a fight for Jews only; it has become a struggle for all of us.

This week it’s exactly a year ago that Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi was beaten to death in an Iranian jail after she was arrested for taking photos outside a prison where a demonstration was taking place. Apparently the trial of those who committed this heinous act is now underway, although I have earlier expressed my serious doubts about who exactly is standing trial, those with direct responsibility are more than likely to escape justice. The Iranian government will sentence some pitiful underlings behind closed doors and that will be it.

From the very start this affair has been marred by the inexplicable lack of effort by the Canadian government to see that the Kazemi’s family interests were looked after properly. This attitude has generated a lot of criticism and not to long ago her son expressed his deep disappointment over this. Now that foreign monitors have been barred from attending the trial Canada’s foreign minister has finally stepped up to the plate and recalled the country’s ambassador to Tehran. Bob Tarantino comments that this move no doubt has the leadership in Tehran trembling, and he’s right as it reminds me so much of my native Holland issuing hilarious “stern warnings” to China over human rights abuses. Tough diplomacy, if you can call it that, has no effect whatsoever. You can only hit a regime where it hurts and that’s in the wallet, but I doubt if Canada is really prepared to tear up some lucrative deals with Iran for the sake of one dead photographer.

UPDATE: Marzi has some interesting comments as to why sanctions would be highly unlikely...

It’s not the first time that I have lamented the fact that the blogosphere underreports Indonesia. Apart from Macam-Macam (which has the island republic as its sole topic) and the occasional incursions by Conrad, I have a hard time finding good writing on Indonesia.

Yet, there’s good reason to look at the country which has recently completed its first round for the presidential elections which will go to another decisive round in September. When Suharto’s rule ended in 1998 the country was probably correctly qualified as an economic basket case and the rapid succession of presidents in a country that in its first 50 years of existence had only had two, supported the notion that it had become ungovernable as well. The nation’s diversity and likelihood of falling apart resurfaced in the newswires in the absence of strong leadership, and to compound it all, 9/11 turned the world’s largest muslim country into a breeding ground for new terrorists. I was often mystified at the number of people that were able to assure me that Osama bin Laden was now hiding in Indonesia. The country was consequently painted as the prime candidate to be the next Islamic republic and the dreadful nightclub bombings on Bali in 2002 only reinforced the idea that there was little that could stop Indonesia’s slide into the abyss of history.

As the Economist this week points out in its leader (subscriber link only), things have not only stabilized on the economic front, the first round of elections for a new president has proven that the transition to an orderly democracy is starting to take shape. True, the contenders for the presidency were not able to present a real message or vision to present to their 220 million underlings, but radical Islamist candidates were unable to get enough traction to field a candidate and the two pro-Islam candidates that were on the ballot were actually opposed to turn the island republic into the next Iran. The Economist highlights the accomplishment:

Indonesia’s example ought to put paid to the notion, still common in the Muslim world and sometimes heard in the West, that democracy and Islam can never co-exist. One might very well argue that it shows the contrary: democracy is good for Islam. Whenever given a choice, Muslim voters – not just in Indonesia, but in Malaysia, India, Pakistan and arguable Turkey too – reject extremism.

Yes, and it also points to the obvious conclusion that democracy has only found fertile grounds in those Muslim countries that are historically and culturally separate from the Muslim-Arabic core of the Middle East. If Saudi Arabian fighters are treated as foreigners in Iraq and Afghanistan, imagine how they are being perceived on the island of Java, no Osama hiding in Bogor anytime soon.

That doesn’t mean that Indonesia’s woes are over. Corruption remains one of the pillars of doing business in the country, economic and demographic issues will persist well into the foreseeable future and Islamist and ethnic forces will continue to try and pull the political and cultural center apart whenever they feel the time is ripe. Still, with the restructuring of a lot the 1990s financial excesses, an orderly transformation to democracy where 80% of eligible voters turned out and an apparent repudiation of radical Islamism things are indeed starting to look up. Either incumbent Sukarnoputri or challenger Yudhoyono, who is widely seen as the man to beat, will have to take on the difficult task of ensuring that this fragile glimmer of hope is sustained into a better future.

Good to see that the same-sex marriage issue has now been sent to the venue where it belongs: the states. Senator John McCain put it succinctly:

"The founders wisely made certain that the Constitution is difficult to amend and, as a practical political matter, can't be done without overwhelming public approval. And thank God for that"

Let’s see how the individual states deal with this, and if anyone on the Republican side dares to touch this thorny issue during the campaign.

Blair may be on the brink, but he delivered a solid speech today again defending his decision to go to war in Iraq. His justification echoes my key argument supporting the pre-emptive war, one that has been sorely missed when it turned out that WMDs could not be found, and that is: given the evidence could we have taken the risk that he had them? Michelle Malkin adds some more pointing to the fact that Saddam was a threat and that, my second argument, international sanctions had pretty much collapsed. These remain the two key arguments justifying the war, we can't repeat them often enough.

Trudeaupia can be counted on to report the latest instalment of censorship in the people's republic. This time a radiostation loses its license over "offensive comments".

Since my return there have been some tweaks: technical upgrades, the blogroll has been revised, the top referrer list has been updated and the categories on the left will be brought back to a more manageable list shortly. And I finally succumbed to commercial pressures and decided to insert a “tipping point” on your left, if you are a regular visitor and feel so inclined you can drop something in there to help keep the site (and me) going. Thanks for returning, for visiting, for commenting and supporting.

This report tells us that a luxury condo owner in Vancouver has directly or indirectly been involved in poisoning some trees on public parkland in a desperate attempt to destroy the trees and improve his or her views. Stories like this pique my immediate interest for in spite of the phenomenal outcry over this (true, true, you can’t destroy public property) I would like to put a few things in perspective.

First, in most of British Columbia the health and well being of trees is not only tantamount to, no it often exceeds, the care and well being of human beings. You can entertain the most bizarre and xenophobic viewpoints, but start to discuss removing trees and you’re in real trouble and even a reasonable argument to cut a tree for safety or esthetic reasons might result in you being nailed to the cross of green righteousness. I know that for a fact for I live in a community with splendid ocean views but any hint at improving those by chopping the odd fir brings out disdain and anger. You see, environmentalism is fine and I can go a long way with it, but the moment it becomes both institutionalized and “gospellized”, we are leaving the domain of ideas and reason and we are dealing with nothing less than pure envirofascism. There’s no room for your argument, in fact, with your suggestions you are endangering not just the trees but the entire system of beliefs built around the damn things.

In this case the view-obstructed condos are not that cheap so the enviro-fascists were able to bolster their case by not only pointing to the damage done to the sacrosanct tree, no these condo-owners were boosting their property values, the ultimate horror: they were enriching themselves! When envirofascism merges with anti-capitalism it’s time to cut your losses in BC, chances are economic value is going to be destroyed one way or the other and you might as well leave before you are being wiped out in the process.

In any other place in the world a formal request to get rid of trees would have been dealt with in a reasonable fashion. A request to have your everyday view improved would be balanced against the interests of an occasional passerby, in this case in a province with probably the highest ratio of trees per person it could hardly have been an onerous request. Yet that’s not the way it works here, the bureaucracy has some solid built-in defenses against those that challenge to enshrined environmentalism and now that the affected ones have taken the law into their own hands they have put themselves in an awkward spot, but they shouldn’t be. They have a valid point that should have been listened to in the first place.

UPDATE: Here's a website devoted entriely to the ever increasing lunacy of the environmental movement: Greenie Watch. In particular the entry "fuck for forest" is worth a visit and then the title of this post could have read: "get laid by saving a tree".

Megan McArdle attended a conference in Montreal and was somewhat perplexed when she learned about the fragility of Canadian politics and the sentiments that could one day lead to Western separation. I wrote about such a scenario a while ago in a piece called A Western Republic. Depending on political events it is a topic that raises its head from time to time and it is something that is either used or abused by politicians from the country’s federal political center. In order to solidify his position as the new Prime-Minister Paul Martin made “western alienation” one of the central pieces of his platform last year, but when election time came around he wasted very little time to point out to the electorate that western values, notable those of free-market and conservative Alberta, were essentially “un-Canadian”. In doing so he contributed in no small way to the surge of a phenomenon that he vowed to fight when he took office.

The term “western alienation” doesn’t seem to capture the sentiment for it implies that one region can no longer recognize itself in the values propagated in and from the center. Canada has never been a federal state where a common culture and values are enshrined in a shared sense of nation such as the United Stat