Young Aussie wins British snooker title

October 30, 2006
SMH

Australian Neil Robertson has won the British snooker Grand Prix.

The 24-year-old from Melbourne beat Englishman Jamie Cope 9-5 in Aberdeen to take the $148,000 prize.

The Press Association reports that Robertson was given odds of 33-1 to win, becoming the first Australian to win a ranking event title.

"I was twitching all over the place toward the end there," Robertson said, adding that it had been the best week of his life.

Frame scores (Robertson first): 40-67 ,100-8 (Break 100) 78-0 (78), 60-59 (59, Robertson), 61-2, 35-70 (55), 59-10, 63-38, 64-31, 98-9 (63), 0-105 (105), 42-69, 27-57, 70-1 (55).

Supreme Court tackles global warming

Corporate America is split on whether the EPA should regulate carbon dioxide

By Marc Gunter,
Fortune senior writer
October 27 2006

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to take up the issue of climate change, some unusual alliances are forming - and corporate America finds itself on both sides of the debate.

The case before the high court, known as Massachusetts v. EPA, turns on a question that, surprisingly, remains unanswered after seven years of legal wrangling: Does the U.S. EPA have the authority under the 36-year-old Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant?

It sounds simple, but like the rest of the scientific, legal and political debate about global warming, it's not. Nor is the response from big business.

Carbon dioxide, you may recall from high school science, is a clear, odorless gas that helps trees and crops grow - in other words, not your typical pollutant. Yet rising levels of CO2, most of which is generated by power plants and motor vehicles, contribute to the greenhouse effect, which traps heat in the atmosphere, increasing the earth's surface air temperature.

Here's how the sides have lined up in the case, so far.

Supporting federal regulation are the attorneys general of 13 states, environmental groups, a coalition of church groups, native Americans living in Alaska, - and utility companies Entergy and Calpine, as well the Aspen Skiiing Co.

Such bulwarks of the Fortune 500 as General Electric and Wal-Mart also say they favor federal regulation of greenhouse gases, although they have not joined this case.

On the other side are the EPA, about a dozen mostly-industrial states, the American Petroleum Institute, utilities, car dealers and automakers Daimler Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. It's not every day that the EPA joins forces with big business to ask that its powers be curbed, but that's what's happening here.

"This case makes for strange bedfellows," say the lawyers for Entergy, a $10-billion a year utility company based in New Orleans, in their friend of the court brief. "Entergy's position is atypical of an industry largely opposed to CO2 regulation."

Why? Entergy is the U.S.'s second largest generator of nuclear energy, which does not contribute to global warming. Nuclear power could be advantaged if carbon emissions are regulated or taxed.

Calpine, an $8.7 billion a year utility that also backs regulation, operates natural gas-fired power plants and is North America's largest producer of renewable geothermal energy. It, too, wouldn't mind seeing curbs placed on coal-burning utilities that generate lots of CO2. Then again, Calpine is bankrupt so it has more than global warming to worry about.

As for the Aspen Skiing Co., which filed a friend of the court brief, its CEO has said that the loss of a few dozen days in the ski season because of rising temperatures would wipe out the profits of Colorado ski resorts and lead to "an economic disaster" for the state.

U.S automakers, meanwhile, oppose any regulation that penalizes the big cars and trucks that generate their profits. Coal-burning utilities, too, don't want to have to charge more for electricity, which would likely happen if carbon is regulated or taxed.

Others argue that carbon regulation will curb economic growth. "There are risks of climate change but also of climate change policy," writes Marlo Lewis Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Carbon emissions can't be stabilized, much less lowered, he argues, without "heavy constraints on U.S. energy consumption and economic growth."

The Supreme Court case has a tangled history. In 1999, near the end of the Clinton administration, environmental groups petitioned the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The EPA began to look at the issue, but after the 2000 elections the agency's legal counsel decided that it did not have the authority to regulate CO2 for global climate change purposes. That triggered this lawsuit.

Last year, the EPA won an important victory when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to support the government's argument. To the surprise of many, the Supreme Court agreed in June to take the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 29.

Truth be told, the case may end up having more political than legal impact. A win by the environmentalists "would add to the momentum building for greenhouse gas regulation," Michael Gerrard, a partner at the law firm of Arnold & Porter and author of a fortcoming book on global climate change and U.S. law.

But a win for the environmentalists will merely set off a long round of administrative proceedings, and a defeat probably would not slow down the momentum building for carbon regulation, even in the state and in the corporate world.

"There's a growing unease in many sectors of the economy about the chaotic growth of inconsistent greenhouse gas regulation," Gerrard says.

Already, California's efforts to curb motor vehicle emissions have been joined by 10 other states; California Gov. Schwarzenegger recently signed a bill to regulate industrial sources of CO2; and northeastern states from Maine to Maryland have joined forces to curb CO2 emissions from power plants.

All this brings pressure on the auto industry and electric utilities to find ways to profit from carbon regulation, rather than fight it. The Supreme Court case is "one move in a big chess game," says David Doniger, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The automakers, in particular, need to find ways to make more-efficient cars and trucks that emit less carbon dioxide, he argues. "We want them to innovate rather than litigate," Doniger says. "They should put their lawyers in a cage and let the engineers out."

That's what GE, Wal-Mart, DuPont and a slew of other companies are doing: They are finding ways to innovate, save energy, cut costs and reduce emissions. Smart companies can see which way the wind is blowing - and how fast the ice is melting.

Report's stark warning on climate

Analysis By Robert Peston
Business Editor, BBC News
29 October 2006

The Stern Review says that climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. And on the basis of this intellectually rigorous and thorough report, it is hard to disagree.

Sir Nicholas Stern, a distinguished development economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, is not a man given to hyperbole.

Yet he says "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th Century".

His report gives prescriptions for how to minimise this economic and social disruption.

His central argument is that spending large sums of money now on measures to reduce carbon emissions will bring dividends on a colossal scale. It would be wholly irrational, therefore, not to spend this money.

However, he warns that we are too late to prevent any deleterious consequences from climate change.

The prospects are worst for Africa and developing countries, so the richer nations must provide them with financial and technological help to prepare and adapt.

Tough decisions

He believes it is practical to aim for a stabilisation of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere of 500 to 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050 - which is double pre-industrial levels and compares with 430ppm today. But even stabilising at that level will probably mean significant climate change.

For 150 years, we've pumped carbon into the atmosphere - whether through energy or transport - as if it had no price David Milliband, Environment Secretary

Even to stabilise at that level, emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) would need to be cut by an average of three-quarters by 2050 - a frightening statistic.

As well as decarbonising the power sector by 60%-70%, there will also have to be an end to deforestation - emissions from deforestation are estimated at more than 18% of global emissions, more than transport. And there will have to be deep cuts in emissions from transport.

The costs of these changes should be around 1% of global GDP by 2050 - in other words the world would be 1% poorer than we would otherwise have been, which would be significant but far from prohibitive.

To be clear, this does not mean we would be 1% poorer than we are today, but that global growth will be slower.

The way to look at this 1% is as an investment. Because the costs of not taking this action are mind-bogglingly large.

Rising estimates

Sir Nicholas Stern's start point is economic modelling carried out in other studies showing that a scenario of 2-3 degrees of warming would lead to a permanent loss of up to 3% in global world output, compared to what would have happened without climate change. But he says those estimates are too low.

He believes 5-6 degrees of warming is a "real possibility" for the next century.

Having fed the probabilities of the various different degrees of global warming into his economic model, he estimates that "business as usual" would lead to a permanent reduction in global per-capita consumption of at least 5%.

But, that estimate does not include the financial cost of the direct impact on human health and the environment from global warming, or the disproportionate costs on poor regions of the world.

It also ignores so-called "feedback mechanisms", which may mean that as the stock of greenhouse gases increases there is a disproportionate rise in warming with each new increment in emissions.

Unfair burden

Putting all these factors together, he comes up with the stark conclusion that if we do nothing to stem climate change, there could be a permanent reduction in consumption per head of 20%.
In other words, everyone in the world would be a fifth poorer than they would otherwise have been.

Even worse, these costs will not be shared evenly. There will be a disproportionate burden on the poorest countries.

So here's the winning formula: Stern says spend 1% of world GDP to be 20% richer than we will otherwise be. It looks like a no-brainer.

There is another way of presenting this analysis of benefits versus costs.

Stern says that if you take the present value (the value in today's money) of the benefits over the coming years of taking action to stabilise greenhouse gases by 2050, then deduct the costs, you end up with a "profit" of $2.5 trillion (£1.32 trillion).

Any way you look at it, the financial case for tackling climate change looks watertight.

Hurdles

That said, there are great impediments to harvesting this dividend.

One is the obvious problem, which is that it requires collective, coordinated action by most of the world's governments - and securing the requisite consensus on the way forward will not be simple.

We should prepare for a whole series of shocks from the effects of climate change that are already unavoidable Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor

In the interests of fairness, Stern argues that the richer countries should take responsibility for between 60% and 80% of reductions in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050.

But assuming that consensus is reached, what is the best way to correct the grotesque market failure that is currently taking us on a path to poverty? How do we start to pay a price for carbon that reflects its true economic and social costs, or a price that includes the present value of future climate change?

There are two main ways of achieving this.

One is through taxation. The other is through rationing the amount of carbon emissions that any business - or any individual - can make, and then creating a proper global market.

Such a move would allow any business or institution that wants to emit more than its entitlement to buy that right, and any business that emits less than its entitlement to sell the unused portion of its entitlement - effectively carbon trading.

Another imperative for governments is to encourage research and development on low-carbon technologies.

Governments must also encourage "behavioural change", through regulation - such as imposing tighter standards on the energy efficiency of buildings - as well as educating the public about the true costs of wasting energy.

Trouble ahead

That said, we should prepare for a whole series of shocks from the effects of climate change that are already unavoidable.

There will probably be both more droughts and more floods. An increased incidence of devastating storms is expected. And there is an increased risk of famine in the poorest countries.

So we must start to get better at monitoring of climate conditions - and adapt ourselves for the new world.

That means reinforcing buildings and infrastructure to make them sturdier in the face of extreme weather conditions, investment in new dykes, and support for financial markets so that it is possible to purchase insurance against climate-related disaster.

It will all be very expensive, disproportionately so for developing countries. So Stern argues, and it's hard to disagree, that there is a strong moral obligation on the richer countries to help the poorest ones protect themselves against the very worst that may transpire.

Evidence grows of waning ocean current

James Randerson in London
October 28, 2006

Scientists have uncovered more evidence of a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Western Europe its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics.

The slowdown of the North Atlantic Drift, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.
Most alarmingly, the data reveals part of the current, usually 60 times more powerful than the Amazon River, came to a temporary halt during November 2004.

The nightmare scenario of a shutdown in the meridional ocean current that drives the Gulf Stream was dramatically portrayed in disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.

That scenario had Europe and North America plunged into a new ice age virtually overnight. Although no scientist thinks the switch-off could happen that fast, they do agree that even a weakening over a few decades would have profound consequences.

The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico, flows up the US east coast, then crosses the Atlantic, where it splits in two, with one branch crossing to West Africa. The other branch, the North Atlantic Drift, extends towards Europe. The warm water it brings to Western Europe's shores raises the temperature by as much as 10 degrees in some places and without it the continent would be much colder and drier.

Researchers are unsure what to make of the 10-day hiatus in the current in 2004.
"We'd never seen anything like that before and we don't understand it. We didn't know it could happen," said Harry Bryden, of Britain's National Oceanography Centre, who presented the findings to a conference in Birmingham on rapid climate change.

Is it the first sign that the current is stuttering to a halt?

"I want to know more before I say that," Professor Bryden said.

Lloyd Keigwin, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, said the 2004 shutdown was "the most abrupt change in the whole [climate] record". "Suppose it lasted 30 or 60 days, when do you ring up the prime minister and say let's start stockpiling fuel? … How can we rule out a longer one next year?" he said.

Professor Bryden's group stunned climate researchers last year with data suggesting that the flow rate of the Atlantic circulation had dropped by about 6 million tonnes of water a second from 1957 to 1998.

If the current remained that weak, he predicted, it would lead to a one-degree drop in temperature in Britain in the next decade. A complete shutdown would lead to a four- to six-degree cooling over 20 years.

Guardian News & Media

PM's culture wars a fraud: Rudd

Peter Hartcher
Political Editor
October 28, 2006
SMH

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, is guilty of perpetrating "a fraud" in his so-called culture wars, according to the prominent Labor frontbencher Kevin Rudd.

In the first substantial Labor response to a notably ideological speech by Mr Howard almost a month ago, Mr Rudd stakes out a philosophical alternative for the Opposition.

Mr Rudd argues in a forthcoming essay that the Government's ideological excesses give Labor a chance to "reclaim the centre of Australian politics".

He told the Herald yesterday that Labor needed to engage in the battle of ideas and should not sit idle. His combativeness contrasts with the silence of his leader, Kim Beazley, who has made no substantive response to Mr Howard.

Mr Rudd's essay, his second on political philosophy in a month, seems designed to establish him as something of a philosopher king in Labor and an equal to the Prime Minister.

Labor's response to the Howard Government should be "anchored in Adam Smith and the market with social responsibility, rather than in Karl Marx and madness", he said.

The "culture wars" - whose battlefields include the teaching of history, school standards, migrants' rights, alleged bias at the ABC and homosexual marriage - were a fraud because they are designed not to make real change but to mask the damage inflicted by the Government's economic policies, Mr Rudd claims.

In an address on October 3 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the conservative journal Quadrant, Mr Howard made a speech advancing the culture wars. He rejoiced in the death of "philo-communism" in Australia and the struggle against "political correctness."
The Prime Minister railed against the "fangs of the left" in the debate over teaching Australian history. And he warned of the ideological fights to come.

He likened the war on terrorism to the struggle against communism - "a generational struggle for ideals of democratic freedom and liberty under the law".

He also warned his audience "we should not underestimate the degree to which the soft-left still holds sway, even dominance, especially in Australia's universities".

Mr Rudd, Labor's spokesman on foreign affairs, has hit back in an essay to be published in the magazine The Monthly next week, a sequel to an earlier essay urging the churches to take a more active role in politics.

Mr Rudd writes in the essay titled Howard's Brutopia that the Prime Minister's speech was a "diversion" from "the debate that Howard is desperate not to have".

That, according to Mr Rudd, is "the values debate in Australia between market fundamentalism and fairness".

In the US, critics of the Republican Party of George Bush make a similar claim. Thomas Frank, for instance, in his book What's the Matter with Kansas? argues that the Republicans' values agenda is a vast "bait-and-switch" manoeuvre so that middle-class voters will not notice that Bush Administration policies are actually damaging their economic interests.

Mr Howard has previously argued that market economics complements social conservatism and his Government pursues both in tandem, but Mr Rudd argues that the two are irreconcilable.

"'Traditional conservative values' are being demolished by an unrestrained market capitalism that sweeps all before it," writes Mr Rudd. "This is the disconcerting reality that the right itself must acknowledge."

According to Mr Rudd: "There are no more corrosive agents at work today on the so-called conservative institutions of family, community, church and country than the unforgiving forces of neo-liberalism, materialism and consumerism, which lay waste to anything in their path."

A look at the Nobel Peace prize winning Grameen Bank

The Associated Press
13 OCTOBER, 2006

The Grameen Bank, together with its founder Muhammad Yunus, won the 2006 Nobel Peace for pioneering the use of microcredit, the extension of small loans to benefit poor entrepreneurs.

WHAT IS IT: The Grameen Bank hands out microcredit, or very small loans, to the poor of Bangladesh who do not qualify for loans from conventional banks. No collateral is needed and repayment is based on an honor system.

HOW DID IT START: In 1974, Yunus, then an economics professor recently returned from the United States, lent a total of US$27 to 42 villagers who made bamboo furniture. The loans, which were all paid back, allowed them to cut out the middlemen and purchase their own raw materials. Emboldened by his experiment, Yunus won government approval in 1983 to open Grameen, Bengali for "rural."

WHY DO IT: Microcredit proponents believe these small loans are an effective means of alleviating poverty and stimulate the economy from the bottom up.

WHO QUALIFIES: Anyone can qualify, but they must belong to a five-member group. Once the first two members begin to pay back their loans, the others can get theirs. While there is no group responsibility for returning the loans, the bank believes it creates a sense of social responsibility, ensuring all members pay pack their loans.

DOES IT WORK: Grameen claims a 99 percent repayment rate. According to a recent Grameen survey, 58 percent of the families of Grameen borrowers have crossed the poverty line.

WHO OWNS THE BANK: The government of Bangladesh owns 6 percent of the bank while the borrowers own the other 94 percent.

WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS: The bank has handed out US$ 5.72 billion (€4.56 billion) since its inception to 6.61 million people and been repaid US$ 5.07 billion (€4.04). Women account for 97 percent of the loan takers. Grameen Bank has 2,226 branches, works in 71,371 villages and has a total staff of 18,795.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: Critics are skeptical about the 99 percent repayment figure and charge that the system leads to the borrower becoming dependent on the loans. Yunus has also been criticized for the level of interest rates that climb as high as 20 percent for loans to businesses that generate income.

Apple's iPod code 'cracked'

Asher Moses
October 24, 2006

The iPod has just had its fifth birthday, but Apple's celebrations may be cut short thanks to a 22-year-old Norwegian who claims he's cracked Apple's proprietary iPod-iTunes ecosystem.

Jon Lech Johansen, affectionately known as DVD Jon, garnered worldwide fame and notoriety when, at the age of 15, he cracked the encryption scheme used by DVD. This allowed for DVDs to be copied and played back on any device.

Now Johansen claims he's mastered the inner workings of the iPod and its FairPlay encryption technology, allowing him to remove many of the restrictions Apple places on its users.

Today, songs purchased from Apple's iTunes store can't be played on non-iPod devices, and, if you've bought songs from other music stores, the chances are you won't be able to play them on the iPod either since they use a form of copy protection that Apple doesn't support.

Johansen's latest company, DoubleTwist, has developed programs to get around these restrictions, and plans to license them to digital music stores that are looking to sell copy-protected songs capable of being played on the iPod.

Johansen's driving force is his belief that users have the right to listen to songs they have bought legally on any device they own.

"Today's reality is that there's this iTunes-iPod ecosystem that excludes everyone else from the market," he told Fortune magazine.

"I don't like closed systems," he added.

Specific details on how his programs work are as yet unknown, but it's understood that they trick an iPod into thinking it's playing an iTunes-purchased song by emulating Apple's own FairPlay encryption technology.

Unlocking the iPod-iTunes ecosystem is seen by many as a good thing for consumers, as it will most likely result in increased competition to the iTunes Store, possibly resulting in lower prices and a higher quality service.

DoubleTwist has already signed its first client, which it refuses to name. It remains to be seen whether or not other companies will license the technology, as it's possible they could be sued by Apple.

Johansen says that his new business is operating well within the law, because, rather than removing protection, his programs are technically adding copy protection.

"The law protects copyrights, but it doesn't keep you locked into the iPod," Johansen told Fortune.

Whether or not US law agrees with him remains to be seen, and may only be determinable in court since there are few previous cases that can be used as precedents.

A spokesman for Apple Australia refused to comment on this story, and would not confirm or deny whether or not Apple would be taking legal action against DoubleTwist.

Either way, Johansen doesn't appear to be concerned, as indicated by the title of his personal blog: So Sue Me.

Fat Land

"Fat Land" by Greg Critser

In America, fat and poor go together.
Reviewed by Laura Miller

On Sept. 12, 2001, according to Greg Critser's "Fat Land," one of the few news stories to break through the coverage of the previous day's attacks "was one about the latest obesity statistics (the national rate had jumped again -- to 26 percent)." Overweight will kill far more Americans each year than any terrorist would dare dream of taking out, and Critser is rightly incensed about the death toll racked up by cardiovascular disease, hypertension and especially diabetes, along with all the other fat-related illnesses.

Still, it's taken a while for the true proportions of the epidemic to penetrate my own consciousness, and to shock me it's taken a number like 26 percent (and that's just the obese; about half of us are merely "overweight," at least enough that health problems start to kick in).

Sure, most of the people I know want to lose a few pounds, but none of them are actually obese or even significantly overweight. There's a guy from the University of Colorado's Health Sciences Center, a physiologist named James O. Hill, who's been running around pronouncing that "almost all Americans will be overweight by 2050," but from my little urban corner of the world, the fattening of the land has been nearly invisible.

That's Critser's point. Obesity, he points out, is a condition that "disproportionately plagues the poor and the working poor," while public discussion and policymaking on the topic get steered by the middle and upper classes. A health journalist, Critser decided he needed to lose 40 pounds a few years ago. To do so he enlisted a competent doctor, the prescription weight-loss medication Meridia, jogs in a congenial neighborhood park, a wife who cooked him healthy food, and access to plenty of information. "And money," he adds. "And time." He lost the weight, but "the more I contemplated my success, the more I came to see it not as a triumph of the will, but as a triumph of my economic and social class."

By contrast, he covered the opening of a Krispy Kreme doughnut store in Van Nuys, Calif., a largely working-class Latino area, for Harper's magazine in 1999. The store manager explained to him, "We're looking for bigger families ... Yeah, bigger in size, " meaning, I suppose, that Van Nuys residents have more kids, as most Latino families tend to do, but also that they're likely to be heavier than non-Hispanic whites. African-Americans are more likely to be overweight than either group. And the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be obese.

The association of fat with a lower social status is probably intuitive for most Americans, but so far that's mostly been treated as a cruel stereotype of the overweight, representatives of whom have gone on TV talk shows to tearfully protest that they are not "lazy" or "low class." The innovation Critser brings to the literature of obesity is to take what turns out to be a valid perception after all -- working-class and underclass people are more likely to be fat -- and pull a switcheroo. Rather than regard class status as a stigma unfairly affixed to fat people, he presents fat as a heath liability unjustly foisted on the poor and insufficiently addressed by the affluent.

It's a refreshing argument and often quite persuasive. Critser also traces some developments in international trade, agriculture, social customs, marketing and food sciences that, he maintains, have conspired to boost the calorie content of the average American's diet. High-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that fosters diabetes, and palm oil, said to enjoy many "molecular similarities to lard," have become pervasive in prepared foods since the 1970s, and they are two of the nastiest, most fattening concoctions known to man. The portion of the average American's food dollar spent on meals obtained away from home jumped from 25 percent to 40 percent between 1970 and 1996. Restaurant food not only tends to be higher in calories (it adds 197 more per day, to be precise), it also comes in increasingly humongous portions, especially if you supersize your order. A regular serving of McDonald's French fries contained 200 calories in 1960; now it has 610. Then there are the between-meal snacks and the sedentary lifestyle.

As you might guess, "Fat Land" is packed with numbers, and while much of this is familiar stuff, some of the studies Critser digs up are fascinating. People, including children 5 and older, eat more food when presented with more of it, which pretty much dispenses with the notion that the body just naturally knows when it's had enough. On the contrary, natural selection has designed many of us to eat as much as we can get, as insurance against future deprivation. In fast-food restaurants, we eat more food when we get larger amounts of it at discount prices, and simply knowing that a greater variety of high-calorie snack foods has been made available to us apparently spurs us on to consume vast quantities of them. Critser debunks the idea that brief bouts of moderate exercise during the course of the day can make you as fit as sustained periods of vigorous activity, and that it's healthy to gain a few pounds as you get older.

But the really interesting and provocative aspect of Critser's book concerns class and poverty, which he insists several times are the "key determinants of obesity and weight-related disease." That's a strong-enough assertion for a magazine article, but he doesn't take it far in this slender book. He speculates a bit about why blacks and Latinos are more prone to overweight, but he doesn't really talk to any of them -- not, for example, a customer amid the crowd packing that new Krispy Kreme store -- about how they feel about eating and exercise, whether they're aware of how deadly obesity can be, whether they try to diet and exercise and, if not, why not. For a champion of the dispossessed, he doesn't seem to want to have much contact with them.
Instead, beyond delivering a well-earned indictment of corporate junk-food mongers, Critser expends a lot of his ire on "baby boomers," a group he blames for creating a social climate in which fat has flourished. The guy is a journalist, so he knows how to pick his straw men; you can get a lot of mileage out of boomer bashing, even with boomers themselves. But Critser's conception of just who these rascals are is hazy and contradictory. Boomers, he says, are elitist and individualistic, overly permissive when it comes to both their kids and themselves, and full of crackpot notions. He blames them for California's pioneering 1979 ballot measure, Prop. 13, which cut property taxes and drastically reduced education expenditures, and for Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972, which mandated that equal money be spent on boys' and girls' physical education programs in schools.

But Prop. 13 was largely supported by older white Californians (the state is rich in retirees) who resented having their (admittedly draconian) property taxes spent on educating the increasing nonwhite kids in the state's schools. If it was a "generational temper tantrum," as Critser says, it wasn't boomers who pitched the fit. And the connection between Title IX and any decline in school P.E. programs seems pretty dodgy to me; all Critser has to support it is the grousing of some school administrators in a Department of Education survey, a fairly predictable bureaucratic response to change. Anyway, the point of Title IX was to spread around the P.E. resources and benefits to more of the students; what could be more elitist than the old-style boys-only programs that focused most of the schools' time and money on a handful of the most athletic children? Critser implies here that the old emphasis on "group participation and peak performance" in competitive team sports somehow produces more fit students, but later he praises P.E. programs that allow kids to choose the activities they prefer -- a far more sensible approach in a world where many prefer cycling or hiking to soccer.

Given his tendency to slant the story, I'm not sure I can trust Critser when he accuses upper- and middle-class critics of putting the kibosh on anti-obesity programs for kids because of overblown fears they will trigger eating disorders. He's right that the threat from obesity dwarfs that from anorexia and its ilk, which he calls "legitimate (and also epidemiologically small) health issues." But it's bizarre to claim that the medical system has been "skewed" so far in "favor" of anorexia that it has produced safe, effective drugs for eating disorders while the cause of weight loss has comparatively languished. Could the lack of anti-obesity drugs be due to the fact that it's simply a lot harder to medicate against the tens of thousands of years of evolution that have built our bodies to efficiently store fuel than it is to correct a mental illness that drives people to starve themselves? I'm willing to bet a year's supply of Big Macs that more is spent on research into how to slim us all down than on how to fatten up a few teenage girls.

Still, "Fat Land" is a lively book with more than a few worthwhile points to make, and you can't help but appreciate a writer who comes up with a line like "In the early 1990s supersize had met Super Mario with a vengeance." At the very least, it has taught me to think twice before I say the words "I'll have the Super Value Combo" the next time I step up to the concession stand at the movies. By now I really ought to know that if I do, I'm going to eat the whole thing.

Says it all . . .

"I will never apologise for the United States of America, ever. I don’t care what it has done. I don’t care what the facts are."

George W Bush,
Newsweek, 15 August, 1988

Israel says it used phosphorus shells in Lebanon

22 Oct 2006
JERUSALEM

Israel confirmed on Sunday it had used phosporus shells, a controversial munition condemned by many human rights groups, during its war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

The International Red Cross and other human rights organisations have urged a world ban on the munitions, saying they cause undue suffering through severe burns.

An Israeli military spokesman confirmed a report in Israel's left-leaning newspaper Haaretz that it had used phosphorus munitions in the 34-day offensive against Hezbollah, which ended in a U.N.-brokered ceasefire on Aug. 14.

"The army made use of phosphorus shells during the recent conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon for the purpose of attacking military targets located in open areas," the Israeli military said in a statement.

"According to international law, the usage of phosphorus ammunition is permitted and the army conforms to international regulations and standards."

The United States has acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 assault against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. It says using them against enemy fighters is legal and not banned by any convention.

Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of using cluster bombs in populated areas of southern Lebanon during the war, which killed about 1,200 Lebanese and 157 Israelis.

Hezbollah, which fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel, was also accused by human rights groups of using cluster munitions, which are small bomblets that remain unexploded on the ground.

Reuters

Obesity's huge cost dwarfs Medicare

Mark Metherell
October 18, 2006
SMH

OBESITY cost Australians $21 billion last year - double the cost of Medicare.

Analysis by Access Economics, to be published today, has measured the impact of obesity in the loss of productivity and quality of life, and it dwarfs health costs.

The report reveals in graphic terms the drain on human resources as a result of the sharply rising incidence of costly chronic diseases associated with obesity, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis and cancer.

The prevalence of obesity, now afflicting 3.24 million Australians, could more than double, to 7.2 million within 20 years if current trends persist, the analysis by Access Economics says.

It finds the heaviest losses result from the burden of disease, accounting for $17.2 billion a year and representing the non-financial costs of disability, loss of wellbeing and premature death caused by obesity.

The burden of disease figure is based on numerous studies calculating the worth Australians put on their lives in areas such as high-risk occupations. This averages $162,561 a year, and for a whole of life $3.7 million, Access Economics says.

The next biggest loss triggered by obesity was in productivity, estimated at $1.7 billion a year, flowing from the fall in output caused by reduced employment and premature death.

Obesity generates $873 million in health spending and another $804 million in carer costs.

Lost tax revenue, welfare and other government payments incurred by people with obesity was put at $358 million.

The report, commissioned by Diabetes Australia, is to be released at an obesity forum at Parliament organised by the Tasmanian Liberal senator Guy Barnett. "I was surprised and alarmed by the high figures and the finding that there could be 7.2 million Australians with obesity by 2025," he said.

"That is if we do nothing. That prognosis should be totally unacceptable."

The Federal Government has announced a $116 million project to encourage physical activity at schools and healthy tuckshop menus, but it was time for all levels of government and the community to recognise the scale of the problem, he said.

The Access Economics study focused on the impact of obesity, those with excessive body fat, and not the even more widespread numbers of Australians deemed to be overweight, who will also be vulnerable to ill-health.

It found the largest number of obese people was in the 55-59 age group, with 159,000 men and 203,000 women affected.

People with obesity have a three times higher chance of suffering type 2 diabetes and about double the chance of getting cardiovascular conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.

Their risk of cancers including colorectal, breast, uterine and kidney cancer rises by 1.75 times and by nearly 2.5 times for osteoarthritis. More than 700,000 Australians suffers these diseases directly as a result of their obesity, the report says.

Cardiovascular disease generated the highest costs of any disease group, $12.6 billion, followed by cancers, $3.9 billion, and diabetes $2.3 billion.

Cutting Edge : The Dark Side of Democracy

Cutting Edge : The Dark Side of Democracy
Time:
Tuesday, October 17, 8:30 PM
Channel:SBS
Duration:60 minutes
Rating:PG
Type:Current Affairs

Tonight's documentary, produced by PBS, tells the story of the Vice President's role as the chief architect of the war on terror, and his battle with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet for control of the "dark side". Drawing on more than 40 interviews and thousands of documents, the documentary provides a step-by-step examination of what happened inside the councils of war.

From stories of Iraq buying yellowcake uranium from Niger to claims that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, this documentary dissects the now-familiar assertions that led the nation to war. The program also recounts the Vice President's unprecedented visits to the CIA, where he questioned mid-level analysts on their conclusions.

According to this documentary, CIA officers who were there at the time say the message was clear: Cheney wanted evidence that Iraq was a threat. Insiders tell the story of the battle between the Vice President and the CIA.

Unholy trinity set to drag us into the abyss

Ian Dunlop
October 16, 2006
SMH

We are about to experience the convergence of three of the great issues confronting humanity.

Climate change, the peaking of oil supply and water shortage are coming together in a manner which will profoundly alter our way of life, our institutions and our ability to prosper on this planet.

Each is a major issue, but their convergence has received minimal attention.

Population is the main driver.

In the 60 years since World War II, the world population has grown at an unprecedented rate, from 2.5 billion to 6.5 billion today, with 9 billion forecast by 2050.

That growth has triggered insatiable demand for natural resources, notably water, oil and other fossil fuels. Exponential economic growth in a finite world hitting physical limits is not a new idea; we have experienced limits at a local level, but we have either side-stepped them or found short-term solutions, becoming overly confident that any global limits could be similarly circumvented.

Today, just as the bulk of the world's population is about to step on to the growth escalator, global limits emerge that are real and imminent. The weight of scientific evidence points to the fact the globe cannot support its present population, let alone an additional 2.5 billion, unless we embrace change.

Climate change, peak oil, water shortage and population are contributing to a "tragedy of the commons", whereby free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource doom the resource through over-exploitation. The benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, whereas the costs are borne by all.

Examples at local level abound, include overfishing and interrupting river flows for farming and irrigation. One mark of a mature society is that equitable solutions are found to the "commons" dilemma, and we have been relatively successful in doing this at local level. However as these issues become national and global, solutions become harder. For climate change, peak oil and water, the ultimate "commons" is the earth's atmosphere which we have been using as a garbage dump for carbon and other emissions.

As Aristotle said: "What is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest." In an underpopulated world this may not matter, but in our overpopulated world it is disastrous.

Solutions require that we move beyond narrow national self-interest, take a global view and place our society and economy on a genuinely sustainable footing. Sustainability, "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", encompasses the entire basis upon which global society operates, not just the environment. It requires realigning our ethical framework, moving away from the winner-take-all individualism which has created so many of the "commons" problems, to a more co-operative individualism, where managing the global and local "commons" is paramount.

Rather than the negative, focusing on supposed job cuts and fear of change, we should focus on the positive: we have a unique opportunity to set humanity on a new course, built around an ethical renaissance and sustainable societies. Undoubtedly there will be pain in the short term as conventional politics, economics and business models are turned on their head. However, the tools and technologies to solve these problems are available, the cost is less than we have been led to believe, and the benefits greater. Further, change can be achieved rapidly given the right impetus.

The missing ingredients for change are acceptance of the problem, the collective will for action and genuine long-term vision and leadership. Given the dominance of short-term pragmatism in our political and corporate cultures, it is likely our leaders will continue to procrastinate and not rise to the challenge. The pressure for change must come from the community at large, where it is building toward a "tipping point" which will force a fundamental realignment of political and corporate attitudes.

Historically, this has rarely happened without a crisis. Fortunately the trinity are about to trigger that crisis with a prolonged period of "creative destruction" which will radically transform society and economy whether we like it or not. Our stark choice is either to embrace the tipping point bearing down upon us, seizing the opportunity to build a sustainable future, or fudge the issue, try to muddle through in the time-honoured manner and increasingly lose the ability to control our own affairs.

For Australia, along with many other countries, water is the priority. Resolving the water crisis will be the first test of whether we can combine long-term vision and principled leadership with the need to take the hard decisions quickly enough to stave off impending disaster. If so, it will stand us in good stead to tackle the even greater tasks ahead.

Formerly an oil, gas and coal industry executive, Ian Dunlop chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88 and chaired the Experts Group on Emissions Trading of the Australian Greenhouse Office in 1999-2000.

Coach sent off

Michael Lynch
October 16, 2006
SMH

ADELAIDE United coach John Kosmina was sensationally sent off after clashing aggressively with Melbourne Victory skipper Kevin Muscat in the dying minutes of an intense encounter at Telstra Dome last night.

In front of 32,368 fans, Kosmina appeared to hold the ball to prevent Muscat taking a quick throw-in as Melbourne went in search of an equaliser. The two - colleagues last week when Kosmina was assistant Socceroos coach and Muscat in the national squad - pushed, shoved, jostled and shouted at each other after Muscat grabbed the ball and Kosmina ended up on the ground.

The Adelaide boss leapt to his feet and grabbed Muscat by the throat and the two had to be separated by team staff and match officials.

Kosmina was ordered to leave the arena by referee Matthew Breeze.

Kelly Slater wins 8th world surfing title

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Lizard

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