June 2005 – Page 2 – Gavinsblog.com

Poll: In wake of Iraq war, allies prefer China to U.S.

In Britain, almost two-thirds of Britons, 65 percent, saw China favorably, compared with 55 percent who held a positive view of the United States.

In France, 58 percent had an upbeat view of China, compared with 43 percent who felt that way about the U.S. The results were nearly the same in Spain and the Netherlands.

The United States’ favorability rating was lowest among three Muslim nations which are also U.S. allies — Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan — where only about one-fifth of those polled viewed the U.S. in a positive light.

Only India and Poland were more upbeat about the United States, while Canadians were just as likely to see China favorably as they were the U.S.

Why is China seen in such a good light?

When did Bush decide to invade Iraq?

Fred Kaplan with a good piece on the Downing Street memo:

The key passage of the memo—which lays down the minutes of a July 23, 2002, British Cabinet meeting and was obtained and published by the Times of London just last month—is also the one that’s gained the greatest notoriety:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

“C,” as is now well known, was the code name for Richard Dearlove, head of MI6, the British foreign-intelligence service. Most discussion of this passage has focused on its final sentence and the meaning of the phrase “fixed around.” But the most interesting part, for purposes of this discussion, is the second sentence: “There was a perceptible shift in attitude.” When Dearlove had been in Washington some time before, war was not a certainty; yet during this most recent visit, the whiff of gunpowder was distinctly in the air.

It would be useful to know the precise timing of Dearlove’s “recent talks in Washington”—and of his most recent visit before that. Still, if his perception (or, perhaps, his American source, who would have been then director of the CIA George Tenet) is to be trusted, the Bush administration seems to have firmly decided on war sometime in the late spring of 2002.

This inference is bolstered by an article that Nicholas Lemann wrote in the March 31, 2003, issue of The New Yorker, shortly after the war began. In it, he quotes Richard Haass—then the State Department’s director of policy planning—recalling a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national security adviser, in the first week of July 2002:

Condi and I have regular meetings, once every month or so—she and I get together for thirty or forty-five minutes, just to review the bidding. And I raised this issue about were we really sure that we wanted to put Iraq front and center at this point, given the war on terrorism and other issues. And she said, essentially, that that decision’s been made, don’t waste your breath. And that was early July. … For me, it was that meeting with Condi that made me realize it was farther along than I had realized.

Marketers Scan Blogs

How to make money from us bloggers?

Now, a growing number of marketers are using new technology to analyze blogs and other “consumer-generated media” — a category that includes chat groups, message boards and electronic forums — to hear what is being said online about new products, old ad campaigns and aging brands. Purveyors of the new methodology and their clients say blog-watching can be cheaper, faster and less biased than such staples of consumer research as focus groups and surveys.

Confirmed: All Typepad blogs blocked in China

Rebecca MacKinnon has the story, all Typepad blogs have been blocked inside China. Gosh the Chinese are getting really worried…Rebecca notes:

All Typepad blogs, including this one, cannot be seen in China. (Note that Blogger has been blocked in China for some time.) I asked some people in China to attempt accessing this blog and a long list of other random Typepad blogs (including ones that never discuss China), without using a proxy. None could be accessed. Now all Typepad blogs wanting to be seen in China will have to migrate to another blog hosting service or onto an independent server. Meanwhile, Asiapundit has created a series of graphics like the one on the right which you can put on your blocked blog to help create awareness of the problem.

Recovery still has a way to go

Bill Clinton writes on the anniversary of the Tsunami in Asia in the IHT. Worth a look.

EU's problem with 'no'

William Pfaff writes about the EU, saying ironically that what the EU really wants is a new electorate.

Europe’s leaders have reacted to the European Union’s current crisis in a wonderfully Brechtian manner. As the German Communist poet sardonically put it, after the East German workers’ revolt against the Communist authorities in June 1953, the times required electing not a new government but a new people.

The EU wants a new electorate. Luxembourg’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, current president of the EU, said he couldn’t really believe that the French and Dutch had rejected the constitution, since “we all believe that the constitutional treaty gives the right answers to the questions Europeans are asking.”

They just don’t listen do they?

Brian Rossiter

Vincent Browne has taken this story to heart. It is an extremely serious incident, and one that I believe people do not know enough about. In fact it’s not extremely serious, it’s blatantly and completely unbelievable that this could happen in any country that claims to be a democracy.

The long and short of it is, that in 2002 in Clonmel, a 14 year old boy went into a Garda cell and came out of it dead.

There are very serious inconsistencies in this story, that would lead a reasonable person to call for a fully independent investigation into the circumstances of the death of Brian Rossiter.

But the arms of the State do not see it that way. There are extremely serious questions to be asked of the behaviour of the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell. Various things about this story could shock a reasonable person, but to me, what is most shocking is the behaviour of An Garda Siochana and the Minister.

Here is the Irish Times reports on it:

Brian Rossiter was involved in a row with an older man in the town around September 8th, 2002, during which he received a black eye. He was also complaining of headaches.

Two days later he was arrested and taken into custody on suspicion of having committed public order offences following the breaking of windows in the town.

His father Pat Rossiter said he consented to his son being held overnight in custody at the time because he felt that a “short, sharp shock” would teach him a lesson.

Gardaí told him Brian had overdosed on alcohol and ecstasy, but two toxicology tests showed no alcohol or drugs in his system.

So prima facia the Gardai lied to the family. It is also illegal for a 14 year old to be held in a Garda cell overnight. Brian was taken from the cell in a coma, and died after having his life support machine switched off.

There are reasonable grounds for an independent, non-Garda investigation into the circumstances of someone becoming comatose in Garda custody and subsequently dying. More importantly when that person was a minor.

I will be coming back to this story following the outrageous comments of Mae Sexton (PD) on the VB show last night. This has also been posted on my corruption in Ireland weblog.

Finally..

…a well put together, decent, thought-out, genuine, weblog from the BBC (kind-of), using Typepad no less. It really is very good, I hope they keep it up after the one issue they have targeted is over.

Over at Perfect.co.uk, the weblog’s writer, BBC hack Paul Mason left a comment:

Thanks for that – we are looking at turning on comments if we can moderate them. Its all a bit experimental for us because we are running it as a âsemi-officialâ? site – ie to BBC rules on fairness, impartiality and balance – and every day (I set it going 6 days ago) brings an unexpected challenge. The unevenness of trackback setting is again due to experimentation.

Ah the eternal comments dilemma. I actually think the weblog is exactly what Newsnight needs, especially for junkies like me who have to wait until 22.30 to watch it. Just get a few more hacks on board and run it during the day – the photoblog stuff is excellent, mobile phone photos included.

Martian life might threaten human mission

It is a scenario that may seem sci-fi, but it could happen.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group this month issued a report on research needed to certify the safety of such a Mars mission.

One of the panel’s top priorities goes well beyond the scope of any mission in NASA’s current plans. The panel concluded that no amount of robotic testing on Mars could rule out the possibility of living microbial life at future human landing sites.

So astronauts could inadvertently bring the life back to Earth, with potentially dangerous consequences. “The possibility of transporting a replicating life form to Earth, where it is found to have a negative effect on some aspect of Earth’s ecosystem” would present the greatest biological risk, the team wrote.

Tom Cruise doesn't have a hissy fit

So Tom Cruise actually comes across looking like a sensible human being. The video of it actually makes the guy from Channel 4 look like a plonker, by virtue of the fact that Cruise takes a completely reasonable position.