IHT: The Two Weeks You Missed

Dear Editors of the IHT

It is commendable for William Falk to take upon himself the task of updating the wide world of what has been happening whilst Democrats and Republicans cavorted at their respective national political conventions (“The two weeks you missed”, IHT, Sep 8). However, it would have been even more commendable had Mr Falk checked all his “facts”: otherwise, rather than a news update, his effort will be just another act of disinformation.

In particular:

1- “Hezbollah…has a new base of operations in the Americas: Venezuela” – really? This has been an ongoing accusation for years, with little evidence ever provided. Shouldn’t one be a little bit more skeptical about it then, when the only source of the information are unnamed “Western intelligence officials”? This is a Presidential Election year in the USA, after all, and we all know which candidate stands to benefit if any international crisis explodes (or is concocted)

2- “Some [polar bears] were headed toward the edge of the ice shelf, 400 miles away – far beyond their endurance” – really? All we know is that by chance, a helicopter surveying the Arctic for oil-exploration has spotted nine polar bears swimming. The “400 miles away” detail has been reported not by those on the helicopter, and not even by the WWF that published the original story, but by a journalist at London-based “Daily Mail”, a newspaper that has retracted the story (=deleted from their website) since.

All in all, it looks like Mr Falk himself has been too busy watching Barack Obama, John McCain and assorted “dorky delegates bopping to the Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder”…

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IHT Letters: Unintended irony on the October 11 print edition

From: “Maurizio Morabito”
Subject: Unintended irony on the October 11 print edition of the IHT
To: “Letters IHT”

Dear Editors

May I point out some (unintended?) irony on the October 11 print edition of the IHT.

On the front page, Luminaries talk in Potsdam about global warming (“Nobel laureates feel validation on climate change“, by Mark Landler).

Rajendra Pachauri, the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is reported as saying that “the latest findings…ought to settle the debate about whether humans are making the planet a dangerously warmer place.”

Meanwhile in the Healtgh&Science section of that very same edition, John Tierney reports on “How ‘fat is bad’ theory became a mistaken consensus“.

Remarkably, just a few years ago “92 percent of the world’s leading doctors” believed in what we now know was in fact “mistaken consensus“.

Why would the situation be any different about the currently fashionable, overwhelming agreement that anthropogenic climate change is effectively undergoing, is anybody’s guess.

IHT Letters: Carbon Peace, Nuclear War

Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:09:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: “Maurizio Morabito”
Subject: Carbon peace, nuclear war (Analysts find Israel struck a nuclear project inside Syria, IHT, Oct 13, 2007)
To: “Letters IHT”

Dear Editors

Whilst the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded for efforts to talk about lowering atmospheric CO2, more and more details are being released about last month’s Israel’s bombing of “a partly constructed nuclear reactor” in Syria, with a suspiciously-reticent Damascus government (“Analysts find Israel struck a nuclear project inside Syria“, IHT, Oct 13, 2007).

Talk about getting the world’s priorities right…

IHT Letters: Let’s call it Burma, not Myanmar

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:08:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: “Maurizio Morabito”
Subject: Let’s call it Burma, not Myanmar
To: “Letters IHT”

Dear Editors

What is the rationale behind the use of the word “Myanmar” to indicate Burma?

“Myanmar” as the “foreign” name for the country has been forced upon the Burmese people by the Military Junta in the aftermath of the 1988 killings of thousands of demonstrators.

“Myanmar” is even linguistically wrong, as it includes a final “r” that was meant to convey a lowering of tone and instead just extends the “a” in English. And no wonder: few linguistic scholars participated in the invention of “Myanmar”.

Why should anyone feel compelled to follow the Junta into yet another of its follies, I am not sure. The USA still officially uses “Burma” and rightly so.

(Obviously “Burma” may have a colonial connotation: well, when the country will be back in the hands of its people, they will finally be free to democratically choose whatever name to call it.)

Notizie Radicali: Sovrappopolazione e Natalismo

Il natalismo e’ un attacco alla liberta’ personale, non solo un problema ecologico

Ho trovato abbastanza insipido l’intervento di Marco Cappato e Luca Pardi contro il pernicioso natalismo di Prodi, Berlusconi, Letta e Bindi.

Cappato e Pardi ne fanno una questione ambientalista. Magari lo e’ anche: ma non solo, anzi.

Il natalismo si puo’ facilmente e soprattutto vedere come un attacco alla liberta’ personale.

Non e’ infatti che se improvvisamente trasformassimo Marte e Venere in pianeti abitabili, allora ci andrebbe bene fare figli a piu’ non posso, visto che i limiti ecologici sarebbero molto piu’ grandi di adesso.

Il problema principale del natalismo e’ invece che ha l’obiettivo, ignaro o voluto, di convincere la meta’ femminile dell’umanita’ ad
immolare il proprio corpo nella procreazione.

Fare figli e’ una scelta legittima, ma solo qualora fatta in maniera libera e consapevole.

Le politiche nataliste vogliono invece relegare le donne in eta’ fertile principalmente al ruolo di madri (e mogli, evidentemente),
negando valore a ogni altro tipo di contributo sociale da parte loro.

L’emancipazione femminile, la liberazione dopo millenni di schiavitu’ virtuale ha coinciso con la diminuzione delle nascite, proprio perche’ le antiche costrizioni non ci sono piu’.

Checche’ se ne dica allora di “capacita’ di carico” e “sovraffollamento”, non permettiamo a nessuno di far regredire la nostra societa’, vedendo uteri la’ dove ci sono persone..

Domenicale Sole24Ore: “Cartoline dall’Asse del Male”

Sono rimasto un po’ interdetto alla lettura delle due pagine del
Vagamondo dedicate sul Domenicale del Sole24Ore lo scorso 22 luglio.

Nell’introduzione, Claudio Vicentin ha presentato Tony Wheeler e il suo
nuovo libro sul “turismo” nelle “Bad Lands” del mondo, dall’Iraq alla
Corea del Nord a Cuba, sottolineando come Wheeler abbia un “fastidio per i luoghi comuni” e quindi sia andato a “vedere prima di giudicare”.

Viene poi dedicata una sola colonna a un estratto dal libro di Wheeler, ma ben nove interminabili altre alle elucubrazioni di alcuni dei collaboratori del giornale su quale celebrita’ mandare in Albania, in Birmania, in Libia.

Ora, e’ vero che luglio e agosto sono tempi dedicati al rilassamento ma a parte un insospettato e malvenuto culto della celebrita’ sul Domenicale, c’e’ da chiedersi cosa direbbe lo stesso Wheeler di fronte a tutti i luoghi comuni sciorinati dai “collaboratori”, che evidentemente giudicano prima di vedere (Scaraffia parla per esempio di un Iran che proprio non esiste), e fra i quali si salva forse il solo Camurri (ma non lo dica al Ferraris, ho gia’ infierito una volta).

Trovo il 99% del Domenicale estremamente interessante. Speriamo proprio che lo scivolone sugli “Stati canaglia” sia davvero da imputare solo al Solleone!

Letter to the IHT: Against Climate Supremacists

Dear Editors

It is heartwarming (pun intended) to see commentators are awakening to the dangers of widespread censorship and cries against “denialists” in matters of climate change (“Hot tempers on global warming”, by Jeff Jacobi, IHT, Aug 16).

With almost a century of murderous totalitarianism behind us, it’s the climate supremacists that should be the ones asked to explain how, to this day, could they fail to understand the slippery slope of intolerance of dissent.