Immigration "small benefit" to the UK

Public info sign in London

A new study confirms the same thing I said on this blog months ago:

Record levels of immigration have had "little or no impact" on the economic well-being of Britons, an influential House of Lords committee has said.

Instead, competition from immigrants has had a negative impact on the low paid, training for young UK workers and has contributed to high house prices.

But it gets even worse:

The available evidence suggests that immigration has had a small negative impact on the lowest-paid workers in the UK and a small positive impact on the earnings of higher-paid workers.

In other words, the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer.

Someone tell me again: why does a small island need an exploding population?

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Sadr blinks

Of course, he had to sooner or later. I called my last post a "test for three", but maybe I should have called it a "test for four" instead. There was one other group who had something at stake here, the Mahdi militia:

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities in an effort to end clashes with security forces.

He said in a statement that his movement wanted the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed and maintain the nation's independence and stability.

Of course, some of them aren't listening. One wonders where his concern was just this past week when he was urging his people to fight other Iraqis?

Six days into the battle to purge Basra of militia influence, the fighting has engulfed other parts of Iraq and the death count has passed 250. Among the casualties may also be Britain's contention that it was right to hand the city over to Iraqi control in the first place.

Some people accuse the US of fighting the Iraq war without a clear plan, but look at the competition - Sadr gets impatient with the Prime Minister and encourages his people to fight (he doesn't really have enough tight control to order them). When they do, he orders them to withdraw as soon as things become hot. The result is that many lives are lost with nothing else gained whatsoever. If he had a secret deal with Iran to soften up the country as a prelude to invasion, this might make some sense.

However, I can guarantee you that spy photos would show Iranian movements along the border long before an invasion was prepared.

So what is Sadr's plan? He doesn't really have one except to flex his muscle to maintain his relevancy in the country. No matter how popular he is, he can't take over the country by himself. He can't even take one city and hold it for very long. Why? Because while in the short term he might (I emphasize might) be able to overwhelm the Iraqi Army through attacks and by encouraging defections, he would still need to deal with the Sunni militias who will never just roll over and play dead, not to mention Coalition forces, whom he doesn't stand a prayer against.

Moreover, even any gains he makes are entirely short term. He can't field an army for very long; he doesn't have anything to pay them with. The Mahdi Army doesn't get oil revenues or US loans. So for the most part, militia members live very frugally or have to supplement their salaries by other means. How long does that last? While a job with the Iraqi police or Army might suck, at least it pays something.

This is why I feel many of these reports about Iraqi Army deserting their posts may be exaggerated. It's difficult for any deserter to return to his unit, and even more difficult if he left with a weapon or vehicle. And that means no way for the typical soldier to support his own family and no future prospects.

All this, of course, leads to one obvious question. Hasn't the time to arrest this man long passed?



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Basra is a test for three

And it's one hell of a test. In fact, you could compare it to a final exam. I just can't stress this enough. What the country is going to look like for the next five years is being decided right now.

First, it's a test for the whole concept of withdrawal and letting Iraqi forces take control of their own country. I wish them all the best but I am not optimistic right now.

Second, it's a test for Prime Minister Maliki, who has vowed to finally crack down on the Mahdi Army:

The crackdown is a big gamble for Maliki. Failure could weaken his fragile coalition of support at a time he is trying to unite Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis to pass important laws on oil revenue sharing. In the short term, the crackdown could collapse a cease-fire ordered by Sadr in August. Sadr's cease-fire, along with the increase in U.S. troops and the rise of Sunni chieftains against Islamist extremists, has been credited for lowering violence throughout the country.

Longer term, a failure to dislodge the militias in Basra could sow instability in other areas of the country, undermining the authority of the Iraqi government and delaying the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"The fight is another potential turning point," said John McCreary, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst. "If Maliki does not win in Basra, he will not win anywhere, and instability will increase. If he stabilizes Basra, he gets the chance to repeat his success in another town."

Or stated more simply:

It is also a major test for Maliki's ability to prove Iraqi forces can stand on their own and allow US forces to withdraw.

Last but not least, it's a test for the British:

British forces, who can probably cobble together an armoured battle group of a few hundred soldiers, may well be asked to intervene should the Iraqi offensive fail. If that happens, any hope of the withdrawal promised by Gordon Brown last year of another 1,500 British troops this spring will have to be shelved until Basra can be stabilised.

It may even be necessary to reinforce the British contingent with more combat troops, something that the Ministry of Defence can ill afford as it prepares for the fighting season in Afghanistan.

The only other option would be for Britain to admit finally that it has lost the fight in southern Iraq. That would mean an ignominious withdrawal and handing over control of Basra to the Americans, who grudgingly would have to take over responsibility for the south. As American officers and officials have privately made clear, much of today’s problems in Basra can be traced back to Britain’s failure to commit the forces necessary to control Basra and southern Iraq in general.

Whereas President Bush’s “surge” tactic of sending 30,000 reinforcements to central Iraq has succeeded in bringing down the level of violence in Baghdad and Anbar province, the Americans believe that the gradual withdrawal of British troops from the south has had the opposite effect, a point that Mr al-Maliki and his soldiers are discovering to their cost on the streets of Basra today

Some great comment on the above Times Online article at Hot Air.



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The second Al-Mahdi uprising & Basra

The first was April 2004. Coalition authorities shut down Muqtada Al-Sadr's newspaper in Najaf. Soon after, his followers (the Al-Mahdi army), were in open revolt and decided to directly engage in combat with US forces. They took such heavy casualties that they retreated and have remained relatively quiet ever since. Until now.

The international zone (the "Green Zone") has come under indirect fire attack and Basra is particularly out of control. I'm not going to discuss the current situation in depth because it is already being covered in all the major media. But it's important to keep in mind that this is the same Basra that British troops left for the Iraqis to govern back in September of last year, as they withdrew to the city outskirts. You can assume that Basra is simply a miniature example of what will happen to the entire country if the Coalition pulled out right now.

It's also worth remembering that the Al-Mahdi Army is different now than it was in 2004. By his own admission, Al-Sadr doesn't have much control over his rogue militias, and without a unified command, they have even less of a chance in opposing coalition forces than they had four years ago (and their chances were slim even then).

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One of my photos appears at "Schmap!!"

Front of Malahide Castle in Ireland

On a lighter note, a representative from Schmap Guides Online contacted me awhile ago asking if they could use my photo above. Of course, I said yes. It now appears on their site here. It's not a huge deal, and I don't get a dime for it, but it's flattering nonetheless.

I had never heard of this site before, so I decided to check it out. It is very, very useful tool for tourists. It lists maps, attractions, and photos on the same page in a fun and easy format. Simply by moving your mouse over the pictures you can bring up detailed info about every major tourist spot. Highly recommended.

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Richard Silverstein is stalking me now [Updated]

Only two days after making it clear to me he doesn't want me to contact him anymore, the anti-Israel pundit decides to start emailing me again. And not only me, but the Commanding General of the 1st Armored Division, and his Congressman (no word on whether or not he also lit up the bat signal to call Batman and Robin), as well as threatening me on his blog. Check this out. First he emails me this:

Pls. keep writing me John Rohan or Mike or whoever you are. If you do indeed serve in Wiesbaden the base commanding officer has received a complaint about you which will include any & every insult & abuse you write plus identifying information which will allow them to discover who you are. If you don't serve then you are a liar & will be unmasked as such publicly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From: Mike [mailto:michaelvillano @ att .net]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:46 AM
>To: richards1052 @ comcast .net
>Subject: self-loathing people aren't rare
>
>R,
>
>Don’t feel singled out. If you line up with Finkelstein then the label is probably >accurate.
>
>We have many self-loathing Americans here in the US so it only stands to reason >Israel would have her fair unshared too.
>
>Mike


Remove my e mail address from your blog or I will post yours at mine. It is despicable to post someone's e mail address online allowing spammers to harvest it. If mine isn't removed fr. your site immediately yours will go up at mine.

Here was my answer, which I sent to Silverstein and "Mike":

1) I AM NOT "MIKE" AND I DIDN'T SEND YOU THAT EMAIL. You can compare the IPs if you don't believe me. In fact, I'm not sure why you would even think that. If this was just an excuse to email me, then it's pretty childish.

2) The email issue - I don't owe you any favors, and my spam filter is pretty good. But I edited my post anyway and put spaces in your email address so that it will be useless to web spiders.

3) Since I haven't done anything the slightest bit illegal, go ahead and complain to whomever you want. You can call the President for all I care. You will just make yourself look like a bigger fool than you already have. And just FYI, I don't work for the Commanding General (who is MG Mark Hertling, btw), because he is currently deployed in Iraq and I am currently in Arizona attending a class (http://www.shieldofachilles.net/2008/03/auf-reise.html). Anyway, since he's in a war zone, he has better things to do than listen to your whining.

4) You told me never to contact you anymore, remember? I expected the same thing from you. Leave me alone.

However, before I sent the email someone tipped me off that he had already ranted about me on his site:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/03/26/fakes-blowhards-and-other-pro-israel-wingnuts/

What’s interesting about this fellow if he tells the truth on his blog (which with wingnuts is, of course, always in doubt) is that his blog claims he is a military intelligence officer serving in Wiesbaden, Germany. If he does serve in the U.S. armed forces it means that your and my tax dollars are supporting military wingnuts in smearing their fellow citizens online. Don’t know about you–but I find this disturbing. Not to mention that the vitriol he spouts puts him at odds with U.S. military and foreign policy. In comments at my blog and private e-mails, he attacks erstwhile U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia by name and denounces Palestinians as a people as little short of terrorist murderers. I’d have thought that the military would want to protect itself from being associated with wingnut rage like this.

If this guy is genuine is it any wonder that our military effort in Iraq has failed so miserably (where he claims to have served training the Iraqi police, God help us–and them)? Is it any wonder that our armed forces and government as a whole have absolutely no idea how to relate to the Arab world when this is the best our military can come up with?

Just in case there’s any truth to his claims about his occupation, I’ve written to the base commander at Wiesbaden to report on “Rohan’s” activity. If I don’t receive any reply my next step will be contacing my Congressional representative.

If Rohan is lying and he is not a military intelligence officer then we’ll have yet one more example of wingnuts posing as macho wannabe gung ho types. He’ll be little more than a poor, raging fool seeking to create a life for himself based on fantasy. Given that Rohan has publicly attacked me on his own blog I’d guess he’s either a fraud claiming to be a military intelligence officer or a supremely self-confident soldier-fool who thinks he can get away with just about anything. And if he’s fake, I’d think the army would not look kindly on bloggers falsely assuming the identity of military personnel.

I have a reader who serves in the Israeli army and often disagrees with my views and tells me so. But unlike Rohan, the former won’t blog publicly about his political views or comment at my blog both because the army doesn’t want him to and because he doesn’t want his own views to reflect in any way on the army. I can respect that. “Rohan” has no such humility or modesty.

After I banned Rohan, he began sending me unsolicited e-mails. When I told him to stop writing, all of a sudden I started getting e mails making virtually the same false claims about me from someone named ‘Michael Villano.’ I don’t know whether the e-mails are from Rohan or a wingnut co-conspirator (their IP addresses appear to be different). I don’t even know if their author really is named Michael Villano–michaelvillano @ att .net.

Notice that nowhere does have the integrity to back up his statements by actually quoting me or any of his rabid screeds, because then his argument would fall apart. He is also wrong here in so many ways I don't even know where to start:

1) He told me never to contact him again, and I didn't (until he decided to start writing me).

2) I did not write that email from "Mike", nor is he a "co-conspirator". I don't even know who he is.

3) He claims I don't have any "humilty or modesty" because I don't follow the example of his friend in the Israeli Army who keeps his opinions to himself. Hypocritically, he has no such problem with anti-war veterans who speak up! For just two examples:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/02/11/idf-refuseniks-on-dave-ross-radio-show/
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2005/01/24/iraq-veterans-t/

3) If anyone doubts my service record, I have the best proof available. Just check out my Iraq photo sets on Flickr here and here.

4) He seems to forget I still have some 1st Amendment rights (the right of free speech). It's not entirely suspended to military members.

I have said this before on my site, but I'll say it now just so there's no misunderstanding. The opinions on this site are my own. I created this weblog entirely myself and on my own time. I am not here as an official Army spokesman nor do my views necessarily reflect US Army policy. I think Silverstein is flat out wrong in claiming that my views are at "odds with U.S. military and foreign policy", but that's neither here nor there. I am allowed to have opinions.

As a military service member, I do have a few additional restrictions to my blogging that most other people do not have. These are the things I am not allowed to do: 1) claim to be an official Army spokesman; 2) publicly disparage the President or any of my superior officers; 3) divulge classified information or violate operational security.

I have been particularly wary of #3, but as far as I know, I have not done any of the above. If anyone thinks differently, please show me a specific example, and I will correct it immediately.

If you are reading this, Mr. Silverstein, it is clear that you have anger issues, not only with Israel but anyone who disagrees with you. I did call you a fraud, and I still do. That is my opinion, and one that I have backed up with evidence. I'm sorry you don't like it, but when you put your invective online for everyone to see, you have no one else but yourself to blame for the damage to your reputation. If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else (and it has been). I wish you the best of luck with the choices you have made, but my personal advice is to take a break and reevaluate just what it is you are doing to "make the world a better place".

Also, write whatever you want about me on your own site (although calling me a "wingnut" five times does seem a tad obsessive), but stop stalking me. Some of us already have enough to do in the real world without dealing with such nonsense.

UPDATE 03/26/2008 10:27:00 PM:
This lunatic just won't leave me alone!! And he still thinks I sent "Mike" after him. Just during this post he writes me again:

I only wrote to you when I discovered you'd violated my right to privacy by disclosing my e mail address publicly.

You arranged for that jerk to e mail me. YOu both wrote the same bile at virtually the same time.

I've complained to the base commander listed on the website & provided examples of your insults & examples of your writing that contradicts both military & foreign policy besides attacking me. I've notified them of your violation of my right to privacy & maintained a screenshot of my e mail address displayed at yr site. The deputy to the base commander has replied that my complaint will be investigated. I will also be bringing this to the attention of my Congressmember Jim McDermott and see if Stars & Stripes might be interested in a serving officer smearing a U.S. citizen under the color of uniform.

This may be whining to you but I assure you I don't let people call me the things you have while serving in the U.S. military & spending my taxpayer dollars doing it.

My response:

Do you understand English?

I HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE multiple times and yet you continue to harass me with emails. This is called cyber-stalking which is also a crime. Therefore, I will also be filing a complaint with the authorities in Seattle Washington.

I am also happy to answer questions from any investigator and welcome any additional publicity to my weblog.

For the third time - take your petition to the Pope for all I care but LEAVE ME ALONE. I MEAN IT.

I believe that will be my very last answer to this maniac. I could just add him to my spam filter but every time he writes me he just provides more rope to hang himself with.

UPDATE 03/26/2008 11:18:00 PM:
Like a child, this guy has to get the last word no matter what. After being repeatedly warned not to, he wrote me again three times:

You're a member of the armed forces buddy & under a whole diff. set of rights & obligations than the rest of us. In case you doubt that I'm sure you'll find you're mistaken.

The damage has been done by publishing my e mail address. It's already been harvested & the spam is flooding in. Thanks. That will be added to my complaint.

I already split apart his email on the site, so it wouldn't cause spam. So now he sends:

Remove my email entirely from that post That is a violation of my privacy.

(Now he decides this?) And in yet another email he asks:

Now who's whining?

I didn't respond to this foolishness anymore and I'm not going to. If he was really confident in his assertions he wouldn't constantly be trying to taunt me and convince me that he's right. It's even more ridiculous when consider that his blog has been up for several years (mine less than a year) and his traffic is far greater than mine. Why would he waste so much of his time arguing with a "nobody" like me unless he was emotionally insecure and/or incredibly paranoid?



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Photo of the Week

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the first lady of France, Carla Bruni:

Photo embedded from Stern

The photo was taken in 1993 by photographer Michel Comte, and is part of a collection due to be auctioned at Christie's in New York on April 10th.

Apparently, Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy is furious over British auctioneers announcing the sale of the photo just when she is about to make an official visit to the UK, and is eager to convince people to take her more seriously.

But the photo was taken almost 15 years ago, and done during her modeling days by a renowned photographer. Moreover, she looked (and looks) great. She's got nothing to worry about. According to the auction house, it is expected to fetch up to $4000 dollars, but I expect the bid will go much further than that.

And she's also not the only one. Nude photos of models Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Giselle Bundchen are also scheduled to be sold.

Incidentally, this is not a porn site - but I am not opposed to photos including woman's breasts which can be seen on European beaches, on statues, money, even official state seals. The photo above probably stretches my standards to the limit however.



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Mexico is now the second fattest nation

I found this article via Right-Thinking.com. This is unbelievable, even to me:

MEXICO CITY – Fueled by the rising popularity of soft drinks and fast food restaurants, Mexico has become the second-fattest nation in the world. Mexican health officials say it could surpass the United States as the most obese country within 10 years if trends continue.

More than 71 percent of Mexican women and 66 percent of Mexican men are overweight, according to the latest national surveys.

With diabetes now Mexico's leading cause of death, activists and leaders hope to renew efforts to crack down on fatty-food consumption and encourage citizens to exercise more. But it will be a tough battle, as industry groups are expected to put up a fight.
...
In 1989, fewer than 10 percent of Mexican adults were overweight. No one in the country even talked about obesity back then, said Barry Popkin, a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill professor who studies global weight gain. Experts were too concerned with poverty and hunger.

It's also worth noting that the world's heaviest man, Manuel Uribe, is also a Mexican.

Some of this change is certainly cultural, but it's also a reminder of how wealthy Mexico is. The per capita income is $12,500 which is higher than the majority of nations in the world. Compare this number to nations like China ($5300), India ($2,700) Malawi ($800), just to name a few.

In the debate over illegal immigration, poverty is usually mentioned as a factor. Hopefully this can help us put the issue back into proper perspective.

For a little more on Mexico and wealth, check out my earlier post here.



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Richard Silverstein unhinged

Richard Silverstein is a fairly successful Jewish blogger who authors "Tikun Olam-תקון עולם". The motto of the site is "make the world a better place", but unfortunately, his image of a "better place" is more in line with Norman Finkelstein's vision rather than Anne Frank's.

I got this email from him today. Here it is verbatim:

From: richards1052 @ comcast .net

If you ever again attempt to publish a comment on my blog or even write me an e mail I will do my best to identify who you are & register a complaint with your commanding officer. I find it outrageous that if you are a U.S. military intelligence agent as you claim that you should be allowed to spew such hate, insult and intolerance at a fellow U.S. citizen, all under color of your uniform. Not to mention that you spew opinions that contradict U.S. foreign and military policy.

If you violate this request you better hope you've disguised yr identity so well that neither I nor yr commanding officer can figure it out.

No non-Jew gets the right to can me a self-hating Jew.

I would be glad to point out to him that it's far easier to simply block an email address, rather than writing and threatening someone, but I never email someone if they make it clear they don't want to hear from me. So I can't tell him that.

So what prompted this angry email? For those who like to read correspondence, I'll explain the history here a little.

The first time I visited his site, he tried to blame Israel for a 20 year-old Palestinian suicide attacker named Mohammed Salem Al-Harbawi, who killed himself and an Israeli woman early last month. Comments between myself and several other people were heated, but not excessively so. However, Silverstein did something I have never seen a web-owner do before. In order to "win" the debate, he misrepresented what I said, and then claimed victory by declaring his own comment section closed so I couldn't respond to it. To me, that seemed extremely rude, but I figured, it's his blog after all, and sometimes comments can go on too long. However, I didn't really understand why he didn't just use the site controls to shut down comments for everyone instead. But I found out later the real reason he declared it "closed" was because he didn't like to be challenged on his own site (see below).

In a later comment thread, he did the same thing. This time I decided to write a response anyway, but I added the caveat that he could simply delete the comment if he wanted. He responded to me by email this time:

From: RICHARD SILVERSTEIN (richards1052 @ comcast .net)

It always disappoints me when I ask a commenter to close theirparticipation in a thread & they feel they have to get the last word in. Infact, it's rude, unresponsive & downright uncivil. It's like someone whoknocks on your door & invites themselves in. After you've offered themtheir 4th cookie & after you've asked them to stop they decide to take justone more. The reason I do this is that I, unlike most bloggers, actually spend a hugeamt. of time in my comment threads replying to my readers. And for peoplelike you who attempt to argue with me I spend even more time. The reason Iask some to stop participating is because this has happened at least 40other times before in the past five yrs. & if I didn't I'd be like a chessgrandmaster with 14 comment threads going at once & some commenters wouldhave 40-50 comments in a single thread. I give commenters a few good whacks(which you've had). Then when I judge they're starting to repeat themselvesor that they're making a pt. 15 other commenters have made in this blogbefore (& which I've responded to 14 previous times) I bring it to and end.I never tell someone they can't participate in general. I ask them to moveon to a diff. thread. And btw, I DO get the last word if I want it. It's my blog. You get thelast word in yours. Go to town. That's the way it works.

Here was my answer to that:

From: John Rohan [mailto:johnrohan @ hotmail .com]

1) Most blog software will let you close comments whenever you want. If you can't do that, maybe it's time to get better software. As it is, your comments don't allow people to preview them, which is a big negative. And as I said, you could simply delete my comment.

2) I responded because you made an outright false statement. Palestinians might say they are against killing innocent civilians, but it's likely they don't consider any Israeli to be an "innocent". You might want to check out this piece by Dr. Maria Alvanou. I don't see anything like this outside of Palestine (and 1940s Japan):
http://rieas.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=256&Itemid=43
[Quoted article followed]

JR

Until now, I strongly disagreed with him, but at least I thought he was sincere in his beliefs, and I had a certain amount of respect for him. Unfortunately, his next answer showed me his true nature, and shattered my view of the man:

From: richards1052 @ comcast .net

I didn't want to close the comments for that thread. I wanted YOU to stop posting to the thread.

(In other words, he can't stand someone to actually challenge his view of Israel as an evil empire) My response:

From: John Rohan [mailto:johnrohan @hotmail .com]

Because you were afraid of being exposed? Don't worry, I won't comment on your blog again.

JR

His answer:

From: RICHARD SILVERSTEIN (richards1052 @ comcast .net)

YOU expose ME? Hardly.

Then, a few weeks later, I found an article that directly refuted his claim that the majority of Palestinians reject terror attacks. This is the letter that led to the response at the very top of this post:

From: John Rohan (johnrohan @ hotmail .com)

You once said this in your comments: "The majority of Palestinians are opposed to suicide attacks & killing Israeli civilians. This is a flat out fact."
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/03/07/terror-stalks-the-yeshiva/


Well read this and weep. If it was ever a "fact" (which is doubtful), it certainly isn't one any more:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/18/mideast/mideast.php
RAMALLAH, West Bank: A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.
The survey also shows unprecedented support for the firing of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.


All I can say is you are a fraud, and probably a self-hating Jew. Hopefully someday you will be out of denial, but by that time Israel might already have been "wiped off the map" (with a little help from you).

Have a nice day.


JR

I called him a fraud because he regularly writes disinformation attacking Israel and minimizes Palestinian terror. In the above exchange, I gave him proof how one of the "facts" he likes to cite is simply not correct (notice how he avoided responding to that). I said he was "probably" a self-hating Jew - I used "probably" because I can't read his mind and don't know what motivates him.

Incidentally "self-hating Jew" is not a racial attack, nor is it hate speech (in fact, the point is to convince someone to stop hating!). It is a phrase that was coined by Jews themselves. Of course, it's not confined to Jews; in fact, there are countless types of ethnic/religious/national self-hatred; "self-hating Jew" is just one commonly used phrase in that same vein. I suppose it's far more politically correct to criticize a member of an ethnic/religious group when you are also a member of that group, but I am not politically correct. I will also never hesitate to call someone out for openly advocating the destruction of their own people. It's particularly galling when such people play the "minority status" card as a shield against such criticism.

If anyone has any doubts about my feelings for Jews or my support of Israel, I invite them to look up any one of my postings on Israel, compare it to any one of Silverstein's attacks against the country, and see how they stack up.

Interestingly, he tries to threaten me. It's a good thing I don't roll over that easily. I do/say nothing illegal on my weblog, and the opinions here are entirely my own. Moreover, I haven't been anonymous to anyone who contacts me privately. If Mr. Silverstein would like to give me the contact information for his supervisor, I would be happy to return the favor with mine.

Note: In the past, I have referred to him as "Professor Silverstein" because I believed he had a PhD. But reading carefully, his own bio claims he "studied toward a PhD at UC Berkeley", not "earned a PhD". If he hasn't earned one, then the wording here is a deliberate effort to mislead. Additionally, nowhere that I can find does he claim the title of "professor", so I will no longer use it.

Additionally, anyone who thinks that publishing these emails is a breach of privacy, look at Silverstein's own policy:

E mail sent to me may be quoted in posts unless the e-mail author specifically requests that a message be considered private.

Incidentally, on my own web site I freely allow any views that contradict my own. The only censoring I do is spam and other blatant attempts at commercial advertising.



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When providing food is a crime

In one of the most revolting stories I've heard in awhile, a morbidly obese woman accidentally killed her 2 year-old nephew, possibly by falling on him.

This woman's weight is estimated at an incredible 800lbs (363kg). Why such a small child was left in the care of a bedridden woman who couldn't even take care of herself is beyond me. Criminal charges may be filed in the death.

But there are some other criminal charges that should be filed, along the lines of attempted murder or accessory to suicide. A person who weighs 800lbs has no capability to go shopping or gather food for herself in any way. Somebody has been providing it to her - in massive quantities. There is a point where "no" is the more compassionate answer, especially when a mentally ill person is slowly killing themselves by gorging on food. What was that person thinking? If someone were openly suicidal, would they also provide them with razor blades or a gun?

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The German serving in Iraq

SPC Jeffrey Jamaleldine, embedded from CNN

CNN ran this interesting profile (some video also here) on one US non-citizen soldier. There are an estimated 20,000 of these service members in the US military, many of whom have gone to war in Afghanistan or Iraq. I always found this amazing when you even have a few US citizens who refuse to deploy even after they have voluntarily joined the military.

When you think of these "green card soldiers", you probably imagine people from poorer nations trying to become US citizens. But that's not always the case. This example was SPC Jeffrey Jamaleldine, a German citizen who fell in love with America, and served in Iraq, where he was seriously wounded by taking a bullet to the jaw (it looks like he is recovering very well).

He made a conscious decision to move to America, the land in which he believes "nothing is impossible". Don't get me wrong - I love Germany, I was born there, and my family lives there now. But there is a kind of sleepy attitude in the ever-cloudy country; it lacks the same vibrance that America has.

Jamaleldine's father who lives in Berlin, and was born in Africa (likely North Africa), strongly disagrees with his son's decision and instead would like to see him "devoting his energy to fighting hunger and poverty in Africa, not fighting in Iraq". Fighting poverty in Africa is certainly a noble goal, but it's interesting that he seems to believe that Iraqis can rebuild their country alone but Africans cannot. Moreover, since he fled Africa himself instead of staying and rebuilding it, he is hardly holding himself up as an example.



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"Did you do any water boarding?"

Lynndie England, the US Army reservist who became infamous from her poses in the Abu Gharaib photographs, is currently out on parole. She just gave an interview to Stern magazine.

She claimed: "I really do still think that Rumsfeld knew what was going on", based on a single one-day visit the former Secretary of Defense made to the prison in 2004. She also blamed the media for the scandal (I partially agree), and made all sorts of nonsensical excuses for what happened, claiming that prisoners were put in pyramids to "control them", and they were only naked because they were about to change into prison uniforms (no word on whether the dog leash was part of the uniform).

However, the Stern interviewers seemed equally clueless, trying to push her buttons so they can get some sensational quote, and asking ridiculous questions like: "did you do any water boarding?"

This statement galled me:

How can they say that [these soldiers were "bad apples"] when it was happening all over Iraq. The same thing is happening in Guantanamo now and other places. We knew that our officers knew about it and our sergeants. We thought if they know then somebody else knows.

No Lynndie, it was NOT happening all over Iraq, or even in Guantanamo Bay. Crap like that didn't happen in my unit, or in the unit of anyone that I know.

When pressed by the interviewer, she tried to take a small amount of responsibility:

Okay, I do take responsibility. I was dumb enough to do all that. And to think that it was okay because of the other officers and the orders that were coming down. But when you're in the military you automatically do what they say. It's always, "Yes Sir, No Sir." You don't question it. And now they're saying, "Well, you should have questioned it."

No, Lynndie, any time you are given an illegal order, you DO question it. In fact, you are required to question it. You went to basic training just like I did. You were taught that as well as me.



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The Iraq War five years on

From my Flickr photos

So much is being said about this in the media, that I don't know where to start. Bush's speech on the occasion is being attacked and misconstrued, while on the war people have all sort of divided opinions (both no big surprise). I'm supposed to be on vacation. Pardon me if this post is a little disjointed.

Yesterday when I was in Saint Louis, by chance I saw my first anti-Iraq protest (sorry, no pics). You might wonder, where have I been the last five years? Well, the last five years I've been either stationed in Germany or in Iraq, so no, I never, ever personally saw Americans protesting the war before.

There was about 100 people on both sides of a large street in Clayton, an important business district. They were waving signs and encouraging people to honk their horns. I drove through and shouted at them to "go home!" and "get a job!". I was surprised by my own hostility. Why? It wasn't a violent protest, and they weren't burning Bush or US soldiers in effigy, as has been done before. But it upset me all the same, and I suppose here are the primary reasons why:

1) With their "bring the troops home" signs, they may believe they have soldier's interests at heart, even though they aren't soldiers themselves. Why do they think they speak for me?

2) There are proven studies that show these kinds of protests embolden our enemies.

3) Worst of all - the "wage peace, not war" type of slogans really gall me. That's what we are already trying to do in Iraq! Do they think we are in Iraq for the express purpose of prolonging war? And do they really believe Iraq would become more "peaceful" if the US withdrew right now?

In any case, I'm not sure what the real point is. There are few politicians that noticed this protest, fewer military, and most importantly, no Iraqis at all. So what do these protests really accomplish other than making the participants feel good about themselves? There's a brilliant article on this same issue by Paul Waldman at American Prospect:

A few months ago, a day before one of the occasional marches the Capital sees demanding an end to the Iraq War, I began the descent into the Metro stop near my office, looked up, and saw a number of representatives of Code Pink standing at the railing overlooking the escalator. Or rather, I heard them first. They were screaming at the parade of commuters, at the top of their lungs and in a tone somewhere between simple frustration and righteous anger, "End the war!!!"

Well, I thought, that ought to take care of things. Good work, hippies!

I kid -- heck, some of my best friends are hippies. But that bit of fruitless shouting at Washington's Dupont Circle Metro station came to mind because last month, the Berkeley City Council touched off a controversy by issuing a declaration against a Marine recruiting station in town, calling the recruiters "uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
...
And this week, which will see the fifth anniversary of the start of the war, Code Pink plans to "step up the pressure," as its leader Medea Benjamin said. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Code Pink has a full roster of activities planned for the week, including: yoga every morning at 8:30; organic potlucks every noon; nightly movies and popcorn; a bike ride around Berkeley on Tuesday; an open-mike musical jam on Wednesday [emphasis mine]; and a 'send-off' to the Marines on Friday, when protesters will bring suitcases and pink berets for traveling." How the Bush administration will be able to resist is anyone's guess.

At times like this it's hard not to wonder whether Code Pink and the Berkeley City Council aren't agents provocateurs, a kind of self-parody strike force sent by Dick Cheney to discredit opposition to the war.

I would almost not be surprised.

If you are against US intervention in Iraq, then I hope you have arrived at this decision on the facts, not common misperceptions. The kind of things people still believe about the war are appalling. I am very disappointed when in 2008, I still read wild hysteria and exaggerations like this:

The Gestapo and Stalin techniques - excruciating stress positions, imposed and brutal hypothermia, extended sleep deprivation of the kind Menachem Begin once decrobed as the worst of all torments, sexual abuse, beatings - all these were enforced not just at Abu Ghraib but at Camp Cropper, Bagram, Gitmo and many other informal detention centers, and authorized and overseen by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

Somehow the Iraq war is the equivalent of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, regimes that killed tens of millions of people. And in spite of the fact that Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld never worked/visited any of these places, never issued any orders authorizing torture, and actually prosecuted many of those responsible for abuse, of course, it was all their fault. Once again, this comes from Andrew Sullivan, a popular writer who has absolutely no experience in the military, intelligence work, torture, Iraq, the Middle East, or even investigative journalism.

In a strange way, Rumsfeld agreed with Sullivan in his testimony in front of Congress (but Sullivan would prefer to ignore it):

These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility. It is my obligation to evaluate what happened, to make sure those who have committed wrongdoing are brought to justice, and to make changes as needed to see that it doesn't happen again. I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees. They are human beings. They were in U.S. custody. Our country had an obligation to treat them right. We didn't do that. That was wrong. To those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology. It was un-American. And it was inconsistent with the values of our nation.

I don't entirely support the way the war was handled, but five years ago, I supported the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein and I still support it now. I realize five years is a long time and the occupation cannot go on forever. But let's have an honest debate about what the actual conditions were in Iraq before the US invaded, and what will happen if the coalition leaves immediately.



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Domain address change

In part of an effort to streamline this weblog as well as present a more professional appearance, this site's address has changed from "shieldofachilles.blogspot.com" to "www.shieldofachilles.net". In some places, it might take up to three days for the new address to become available.

If you wish, you can update your bookmarks accordingly by clicking right here.

However, have no fear. You don't actually have to change anything. You can still use the old address with no problem, as it will always automatically redirect here.

Bit of trivia: In the very infancy of the Internet, the ".net" (short for network) domain was one of the original top-level domains created in 1985, and was originally intended for use only with Internet service providers. It never worked out that way, and is now available to all.

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Another cetacean disappearing

Only known photo of a Vaquita in the wild, embedded from vaquitamarina.org

One of the subjects of this weblog is crime, and I consider allowing a species to become extinct as one of the worst crimes imaginable. Particularly when you are dealing with some of God's most magnificant creatures, such as cetaceans (dolphins, whales & porpoises). I'm not a bleeding heart who is against hunting animals. But I am firmly against wiping out an entire species, which can never be reversed once it occurs.

A little while back, I wrote about the extermination of the Baiji, the Chinese River dolphin. Now there is another species on the brink of extinction, the "Vaquita" (Phocoena sinus), a small porpoise that lives solely in Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez. The animal may already be functionally extinct, since the current estimate puts its population at only about 150 members. Not surprisingly, they are primarily disappearing due to being caught in fishing nets.

According to Animalinfo.org, it once prospered in a much larger range, but the rise of commercial fisheries has sharply curtailed it's habitat.

The government of Mexico has declared support for saving the porpoise, but unfortunately, Mexico can do little to control its ever-growing population, and the future for this animal is extremly bleak. Warnings were given several years ago, but the animal's number continues to decline.

There is a website, Vaquita.org, devoted solely to saving the creature.



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Auf Reise

That means "on vacation". I am now in the United States for awhile, the first time in many years I've been here other than just at Christmastime.

For the next few days, I am on vacation and also enroute to Fort Huachuca, Arizona to attend a school the Army requires of me. Duty calls.

Blogging will be slow. But I am still here.

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"The story of how we lost count"

The video above is "Immigration - How We Lost Count", by Panorama, a BBC program.

This is a long, but incredibly powerful documentary on immigration in the UK. It focuses on the borough of Slough, which is about 22 miles west of London and is one of the most ethnically diverse towns in the Kingdom. It's also in an absolute crisis, the strain on resources from its exploding population is incredible. Everything from trash collection, to hospitals, to simple living space are at the breaking point. Why? In spite of the fact that it's population is rapidly growing, the government has a different view. According to official figures, the population of the town is going down, not up. And they are losing tax revenue and critical services as a result. This happened because illegal immigration is soaring, and they can't effectively count their population anymore.

In addition to illegal immigrants, there are also transient workers, and legal immigrants arriving by unknown means that also contribute to the problem, mostly from Eastern Europe.

And Slough is not an isolated case. Last October, the UK's office of official statistics made some waves when they calculated that within the next 50 years the country's population will be 8 million persons higher than the previous best estimate. Add to this the fact that there are still a lot more people in the UK that the government doesn't even know are there, and you can bet that even those figures are far too low.

And for those who make knee-jerk accusations of racism against me every time I mention immigration, you can note that the largest recent influx of immigrants in Slough is the Polish community, who are as white as anyone can be. Whether you are Polish, Roma (gypsy), Somali, Nigerian, or Pakistani, if there are too many of you, there are simply too many, and even if racism disappeared it still wouldn't solve the problems caused by masses of people who are simply struggling with finding a place to live, let alone mastering the local language.



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Sometimes its good to be an illegal

Long story made short:

Saul Espinoza, 36, of Texas, is a US citizen who has been arrested several times in his life on theft and drug charges.

Joel Garza, 36, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has also been arrested several times on theft and drug charges. But he has managed to avoid some charges by being deported to Mexico instead. However, every time he is deported, he simply re-enters the USA shortly thereafter.

Does that sound fair? An illegal immigrant avoids justice for his crimes, while a US citizen cannot?

No, it's not fair, and that's probably why Mr. Espinoza and Señor Garza are the same man.

He deliberately invented the alias of "Joel Garza", the illegal alien, in order to avoid charges, and for awhile, it worked. Every time the US gave him a free bus ride south of the border, he would just head north again, and easily gain entry due to his US citizenship.

There's something pretty wrong with our justice system when illegal immigrants are not only tolerated, but treated more leniently than US citizens. And Espinoza is the only one I've ever heard of being caught - I strongly doubt that he has been the only one to use this particular scam.

And if that wasn't ridiculous enough, via Immigration Watchdog, I see that some reporters are putting a tragedy spin on this, claiming the US might again deport a US citizen.

And incredibly, Espinoza's attorney, Josue Martinez (presumably with a straight face), claims this was only "partially" his own fault:

"Immigration authorities believe he is in fact, that he is here without documentation," said attorney Josue Martinez, who represents Espinoza.

According to Martinez, the problem is partially Espinoza's own fault. Espinoza has been arrested several times for various theft and drug charges and in a couple of cases, he gave the court aliases and told them he was a Mexican national.

Patterico's Pontifications calls this "illegal by choice", and in the comments section, several people bring up the interesting possibility that technically, Espinoza might not be a US citizen anymore, since under the law you are allowed to publicly renounce your US citizenship if you are in a foreign country.



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Tibetan dead reported at more than 100 [Updated]

Photo embedded from Gangkyi.com

The Tibetan protests started on the 49th anniversary of the original Tibetan uprising in 1959. China is officially reporting 10 killed, but other reports put that number at over 100. The demonstrators are not only upset at China's long occupation of the country, but also at the large numbers of ethnic Han Chinese (from mainland China) who have moved into the country. Their small businesses are a key target of the demonstrations.

China has officially given the demonstrators until Monday to quit or they will face "punishment". The riots put China in an extremely difficult position. The Summer Olympics in Beijing are only 145 days away. They cannot allow any challenge to their authority, but they also don't want key nations boycotting the Games, costing millions in revenue.

My prediction: it will take a little while before China takes any significant action. The country is not quite the autocratic state it was under Mao, or even under Deng Xiaoping (the leader during the Tiananmen Square incident). Things are decided by huge committees, and it takes time to put substantial military forces in position in such a remote area. They might even hope the problem solves itself in the meantime. If the riots fizzle out on their own, China will cut its losses and look ahead toward the Olympics. If they do not, China will reluctantly crack down militarily and then deny everything, moving into full damage control mode to stave off worldwide criticism and protect their investments in this year's Olympics. And even in the USA, China's admirers on the far-left will accept China's version without question.

Believe it or not, even the Dalai Llama, Tibet's leader in exile, has his own website. He issued two press releases on the protests. March 10:

Dharamsala, HP, India, 10 March 2008 - On the occasion of the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan people's peaceful uprising in Lhasa on 10 March 1959, I offer my prayers and pay tribute to those brave men and women of Tibet who have endured untold hardships and sacrificed their lives for the cause of the Tibetan people and express my solidarity with those Tibetans presently undergoing repression and ill-treatment. I also extend my-greetings to Tibetans in and outside Tibet, supporters of the Tibetan cause and all who cherish justice.

March 14:

I am deeply concerned over the situation that has been developing in Tibet following peaceful protests in many parts of Tibet, including Lhasa, in recent days. These protests are a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people under the present governance.

UPDATE 15/03/2008 10:18:00 PM:
The Chinese may be faster than I thought. This does not look good:

Plooij Frans, a Dutch tourist who left the capital Saturday morning by plane and arrived in the Nepali capital of Katmandu, said he saw about 140 trucks of soldiers drive into the city within 24 hours.

"They came down on Tibetan people really hard," said Frans, who said his group could not return to their hotel Friday and had to stay near the airport. "Every corner there were tanks. It would have been impossible to hold any protest today."

Government workers said they have been prevented from leaving their buildings.

"We've been here since yesterday. No one has been allowed to leave or come in," said a woman who works for Lhasa's Work Safety Bureau, which is located near the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama.

"Armored vehicles have been driving past," she said. "Men wearing camouflage uniforms and holding batons are patrolling the streets.

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Tibetan protests

Just to help keep things in perspective, keep in mind that right now Tibetans are in the streets in a rare blatant protest against the Chinese government. There have already been deadly reprisals. And if Communist Chinese history is any guide, a much more severe crackdown will follow eventually.

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$82.6 million award against Ford Motor Company

1997 Explorer, embedded from the autochannel.com

One reason why the economy is hurting, is the "death of a thousand cuts" from lawsuits such as these.

On Jan 19, 2002, Ms. Benetta Buell-Wilson was driving her 1997 Explorer west on I-8 near Tavern Road in Alpine, just east of San Diego, at a "high rate of speed". A large piece of metal dropped out of an RV in front of her and she swerved to avoid it. As a result, she lost control and her vehicle rolled over four times and the roof was crushed. Ms. Buell-Wilson was paralyzed as a result.

In 2004, she and her attorneys sued Ford Motor Company alleging that the Ford Explorer's roof was too weak and that the vehicle was prone to rollovers. It's possible they were emboldened by an earlier 2000 scandal involving Firestone tires on Ford vehicles which led to blowouts and rollovers, even though this case was entirely unrelated, and the National Highway & Traffic Safety Administration vindicated Ford in their investigation. Ms. Buell-Wilson and her attorneys initially won a whopping verdict of $368 million ($122 mil for her, of which only $5 mil was for medical care, plus $246 mil in punitive damages). The award was later slashed by several judges, and now stands at "only" $82.6 million. Ford says it is going to appeal yet again, and they complain that they weren't allowed to introduce evidence about the Explorer's overall safety record.

Simply put, a verdict of $82.6 million dollars against Ford Motor Company is an $82.6 million dollar blow to the economy. True, the money is redistributed rather than being taken out, but the effect is that, based on the standard 60-40 split, one woman collects $49.6 million, while her attorney(s) collect $33 million. To put it crudely, it's enough money that neither they, nor their children or grandchildren will ever have to work again a day in their lives. So while a few get rich, thousands of ordinary consumers, workers, and or shareholders become poorer.

Ford doesn't have money trees where they can just grow the cash. To pay for this lawsuit, they will either have to make cuts (resulting in people losing their jobs) or raise prices (resulting in ordinary people paying more). If they have insurance, they can use that (resulting in higher premiums). Making it up by trying to increase sales is not really an option, since the company is already in the business of trying to increase sales as much as possible. True, $82.6 million is a very tiny drop in the bucket compared to their $173.9 billion in sales last year. But the fact remains that it's still a lot of money, and it will still have to come from somewhere.

But did the plaintiffs deserve it? In reading about this case, I'm puzzled why Ford was blamed but not the driver of the RV, or the RV manufacturer. Certainly, neither of them have pockets as deep as Ford, and it's possible that they haven't been identified. But it still seems patently unfair, since one or the other of them are at least, if not more so responsible for the crash that resulted. So is Ms. Buell-Wilson's "high rate of speed" - this was apparently over the speed limit, although I can't find any reference that tells us just how high that was.

Not surprisingly trial attorneys universally support verdicts like this (since it's a lucrative business).

The "California Injury Blog", by law firm Bisnar & Chase, describes it thus:

We’re very pleased this victim, after more than a decade of fighting with Ford’s high-powered legal team, finally received the compensation she deserves and probably needs for her own and her family’s future. Our firm has represented numerous people who have been victims of Ford SUV rollover accidents and the roof crush that results because of the auto maker’s ineffective vehicle and roof design.

Our firm and other law firms have obtained documents and internal memos, which clearly show that Ford has known about its SUV defects for years and has yet done nothing to improve the design or enhance public safety in spite of marketing the Explorer as a “safe vehicle for the family.” It’s interesting to note that all it takes is $30 per vehicle to get the roof strength up to a better standard. But Ford has deliberately chosen to put profits over people. Is one life not proof enough? Is a life not worth even $30?

Buell-Wilson could’ve lived a better, fuller life had Ford opted to make a safer vehicle rather than beef up its bottom-line. Sure, the flimsy roofs comply with federal safety standards, but those standards are extremely inadequate and have not been updated for more than 35 years. And no one knows those facts better than the guys upstairs at Ford Motor Company.

I'm leery of whether $30 in roof-strengthening really would have adequately protected her. But, for the sake of argument, let's say it would have. What happens when the next accident could have been prevented with $300 in roof supports. And then $3000? Where do you stop? Not to mention the fact that the more you increase safety supports in a vehicle, the more you increase the weight and worsen the gas mileage and emissions. In fact, automakers are often sued over this issue as well.

The law firm's dismissive statement against Federal regulations is interesting as well, for that is the weakest part of this lawsuit; an automaker is actually being punished for making vehicles that comply with federal standards! So what if the standards have not changed in 35 years? Has the force of a rollover somehow changed in that time period?

If you believe that the standards need to be changed then let's get Congress to do it. A single court in California (made up of a small jury and judges who are likely non-experts on vehicle engineering) is not the right place to decide safety standards for the entire nation.

I have tremendous sympathy for Mr. Buell-Wilson, who is unable to lead a normal life again. I just don't believe, as it stands, justice has been done in this case. Additionally, if she had not tried to collect such an astronomical amount (or tried to collect from the RV owner or his insurance company) she may already have the money to pay for her long-term care. As it is now, she has already waited six years, and may have to wait longer as Ford appeals again. If they win, she may get nothing at all.



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More discussion at Right-Thinking.com

Two new threads at Right-Thinking.com have opened up linking to my post concerning common myths of the Iraq war. You can read them here and here. Lots of great debate/argument/discussion on the site.

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Should incestuous marriages be illegal? [Updated]

EU flag by Giampaolo Squarcina

In the next 50 years, the concept of marriage in Europe is going to change. Guaranteed. And no, I'm not just talking about gay marriage, although that is a related debate. Now that debate is shifting to marriages between family members, which are far more common than gay marriages. They are already legal in the Netherlands, and the Germany's highest court is about to decide on the issue in the case of a brother and sister who are married (Several of their children have had health problems). But a brother-sister marriage is the very rare exception (for now).

The much more common situation is marriage between first cousins in immigrant families, particularly Muslim families, since the Koran doesn't consider this to be incest. In Britain, the cousin marriage rate among Pakistanis is a whopping 55%. This has had a predictable effect:

British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than the general population - they account for just over 3% of all births but have just under a third of all British children with such illnesses.

Bradford is a city in the UK well known for its high concentration of Pakistani immigrants (and riots). According to the British Medical Journal:

Bradford paediatricians noted an unusually high rate of autosomal recessive disorders among children. Peter Corry, a paediatrician at the Bradford Royal Infirmary, said an "informal data collection" among colleagues showed that approximately 140 different autosomal recessive disorders had been seen locally in the past few years.

Dr Corry said that in a typical health authority the number of such disorders would be about 20 to 30. Recent years have seen a "gradual increase" in the number of cases, he said. The number of paediatric neurodegenerative conditions being treated in Bradford has risen from eight in 1986 to 45 today. Bradford's high rate of such conditions was confirmed in a 2004 study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood ( 2004;89: 8-12).

Of course, the custom is not just related (no pun intended) to Pakistanis. The Dutch News today reported that one-quarter of Turkish and Moroccan marriages in the Netherlands are between related persons. Some of them are bending the religious rules a bit, since some of the reported marriages are not only cousins, but uncles and nieces.

So why do people do it? It is a common custom in much of Asia and Africa with a long history, born at a time when people didn't understand the genetic risks. In 2003, Steve Sailer wrote an article titled "The Cousin Conundrum", in which he explained how cousin marriage may have shaped Middle Eastern history greater than most people would imagine, and why this practice has remained so common among immigrants in Europe today:

European "family reunification" laws present an immigrant with the opportunity to bring in his nephew by marrying his daughter to him. Not surprisingly, "family reunification" almost always works just in one direction -- with the new husband moving from the poor Muslim country to the rich European country.

If a European-born daughter refused to marry her cousin from the old country just because she doesn't love him, that would deprive her extended family of the boon of an immigration visa. So, intense family pressure can fall on the daughter to do as she is told.

Needless to say, this isn't very useful in helping immigrants to assimilate into European societies.

But in spite of the alarming health risks, you have to be careful what you say. Simply speaking out against this issue can lead to calls for your dismissal and accusations of "islamophobia" and "racism". The PC police would much prefer to keep raising taxes to cover the health care and long-term costs, rather than confront any issue that is largely associated with a minority ethnic group.

Of course, simply being related doesn't guarantee health problems for your children. Not at all. Horse breeders raise quality racing horses all the time by breeding brothers and sisters. While it can magnify defective traits, it also reinforces positive ones. So in theory, one possibility to get around the issue entirely is to encourage couples to use genetic counseling to identify beforehand if there are any potential genetic conditions that could endanger their children.

But in practice I suspect it wouldn't make much difference. Families can put a lot of pressure on a couple to have children, and people who are genuinely in love throw all caution to the winds anyway. They would prefer to simply throw the dice and hope for the best. Unfortunately, this is patently unfair: they are not gambling with their own lives, but someone else's.

UPDATE 13/03/2008 08:17:00 PM:
Regarding the brother and sister mentioned above, today Germany's highest court ruled against the couple, declaring that that sexual relations between siblings "do not affect them exclusively, but also can have an effect on family and society, and have consequences for children who arise from the relationship." He now faces going back to prison for two and a half years.

The magazine Stern reported that the man has already had a vasectomy, so he cannot have any more children in any case. This changes my mind on this a bit. I'm not terribly sympathetice, but he has already done prison time; I don't see what is to be gained by sending him back again. Moreover I don't understand why the brother was repeatedly prosecuted but not the sister? She is also a legal adult and should be equally held accountable for her actions. Many people have asked this question on CNN's blog, and no answer is forthcoming. If nothing else, it's a valid basis for another appeal, but the man might not want to take the risk that they both might end up incarcerated.

His only recourse now is to either claim asylum in another European country, or appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. On the blog above, a poll on the subject: "Should incestuous relationships be illegal?". Right now the results read 64% in favor (of keeping illegal), 36% against.



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