Like Josh Marshall, my first memory of any Pope is of one of them dying and being replaced. Although I'm a bit younger than Josh, I started paying attention to the news a little earlier (so why am I the big Mr. Pundit Guy, hanh?), so my particular memory concerns Pope Paul VI, not the short-lived John Paul I. He's written a pretty good overview of John Paul II's place in history and his ambivalent legacy. Read the whole thing.
...Well, it would seem that a train crash in East Deer Township was rather close to home for comfort: only a hundred feet or so from my mother's home. She's been evacuated for several days, staying with my aunt and uncle, and is now back home, with burning sensations in her lungs and eyes.
...I'm rather worried about her.
From New Scientist
The Pentagon considered developing a host of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops, newly declassified documents reveal.
Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an "aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the proposal says.
The other plans - halitosis bombs, wasp-attractors, and the like, can be read about at the link.
One must ask, though: Is having sex necessarily a blow to morale, though?
Yesterday, I was about to post an irritated message, chiding a commenter on another blog for making a misleading comparison between the amount of money the US government had set apart ($35 million at the time) to help victims of the Asian Tsunami, and the much smaller amount pledged by "The EU". The comparison was misleading, I thought, because the EU as an entity is not comparable to the US government: it does not tax citizens directly, does not have anything like the US federal government's budget, and to make the comparison between the US and the EU, you have to look at contributions from the EU member states - that of the Netherlands alone exceeded the US's $35 million.
To do a proper job at fact-checking, I would have had to spend about an hour on New Years' Eve looking up the figures I could find on the internet, which I wasn't looking forward to doing. Then President Bush, bless him, rendered the whole issue moot by making a new pledge of $ 350 million, making the US the most generous donor... until Japan pledged $ 500 million this morning.
This is one pissing contest I would hope nations continue for some time. Thank you, Jan Egeland, for provoking it by calling the rich Western Nations stingy and challenging them to prove the opposite!
That same commenter (who has also posted here, so he'll read this) also pointed out, more correctly, that it's the American way to let the citizens themselves do the giving instead of raising taxes for emergency relief. Without going into the political dimension of that, let's hope that American citizens also choose to outdo their government in generosity, and likewise that EU member nations' citizens do the same. I have donated, have you? (link to Dutch coalition of aid organisations)
It's probably a bit tacky and tasteless of me to highlight this international competitive aspect of the rounds of donations. But to a certain extent, donations from governments are all about looking good, and buying influence. Realpolitik will creep into any country's motivation for giving. We might as well admit it. And if the desire to prove that country X is the best, the nicest and the most generous makes country X do more to help, then I'm all for provoking that desire.
After all, it would be even more tacky and tasteless if someone got the idea of raising money through a charity single. Oh, wait.
$ 1.34 and rising.
I think the currency movements could end up becoming the most important story of the year, but I don't have any clear idea exactly what the consequences will be, and who will be affected most.
Actually, I have some idea, but this 'flu is playing hob with my willingness to shoot my mouth off, so I'll save it for a future update. And by now you should know what that means: I will forget about it completely.
Update: The Economist is making some sense of the matter.
Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld was hospitalised earlier today, but refused further treatment and passed away this evening. He had lung cancer and tumors in the intestines.
I generally don't care much about royalty but I've always had a soft spot for the old man. In his long life, he did some good things, and some bad, opportunistic things, but he was never dull and nearly always came out on top. He last flew his airplane 10 years ago at age 83, and he just had to do a backwards looping because that's the sort of guy he was. I'll miss him.
Official memorial with a biography. Together, the sanitized version offered by the Royal House and the rather unkind spin on his life at Wikipedia offer a good overview of the Prince's life and acts.
The Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst is emphatically denying that Prince Bernhard is dying. Presumably, royalty-watchers are already updating their obituary files.
Seriously, I was hoping the old rogue would live to be a supercentenarian. He's a colorful figure, one of few in the Royal family with a brain of his own, and one whose opportunism was always good for a story or two. No wonder he recently became the subject of a biographical comic although having seen it in the shops I can't recommend it. The authors of that comic are very lucky to be putting it out at a time when the Prince is in the news so much.
$ 1.32 and rising.
Well the Euro's price's rising higher and higher
Soon our exports won't have no buyer
Looks like them Russkies will fuel the fire,
$ 1.32 and rising.
Reader Mithandir pointed this out to me. I've been looking at the rise of the Euro against the US dollar, which should give Americans and Europeans alike the willies for different reasons. But the Euro is actually losing value against the Canadian dollar — the graph is almost a mirror image of that pitting the Euro against the USD. (saved images below the cut, in case something changes)
Reinder Dijkhuis is a translator and cartoonist living in Hoogezand, the Netherlands. He is married, with two stepkids, a dog and cat, and a bevvy of sporadic co-bloggers.
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