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6. mai 2005
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David Trimble, the moderate Ulster Unionist leader, has been defeated in the election in Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist has taken two of the three seats lost by the UUP.
Ian Paisley is, as I see it, an utterly despicable extremist. However, UUP's loss can probably be attributed to Tremble's conciliatory line toward the IRA-related Sinn Fein, and the unionists' total loss of confidence in the republicans following the IRA's transition from terrorist movement with a cause to a pure crime syndicate.
Sinn Fein, on the other hand, has not been punished by republican voters for the IRA's bank robberies and murders. Gerry Adams was easily reelected for the UK parliament, where he will customarily refuse to take his seat.
Thus the halt of the peace process has rewarded the extremists on both sides. The voters have taught politicians that moderation doesn't pay, a lesson they are likely to take.
Update: Trimble resigns.
11:38:42 PM 
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Michael Totten returns from Lebanon, and posts a selection of beautiful Lebanese women. In any conflict between protest babes and dictators, the choice is easy.
Via (of course) Glenn Reynolds.
8:36:13 PM
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Well, Michael Howard didn't pretend yesterday's loss was really a win for long. He has now announced he will be stepping down well before the next election.
The 63-year-old Tory leader said that he would be 67 or 68 at the time of the next election, which was "too old" to lead a party into government.
"As I can't fight the next election as leader of our party, I believe it is better for me to stand aside sooner rather than later so that the party can choose someone who can," he told shocked Tory supporters in a speech at Roehampton University.
He said that he would stay on as leader only until the party has had the opportunity to consider whether it wishes to change the rules governing the choice of his successor - probably a matter of months. He said he wanted his successor to have much more time than the 18 months he had to prepare the party for the next election.
"I want to avoid the uncertainly of prolonged debate about the leadership," Mr Howard said. "We need to remain united and positive and outward looking."
Howard also hope that the new Conservative leadership contest will be without the backbiting and intrigue of the past.
This means Tony Blair will soon be facing his fourth consecutive opposition leader - unbeaten.
Tony Blair is celebrating his historic win and his 52nd birthday today. Happy birthday, Tony, and congratulations!
5:30:02 PM
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A Michigan school has banned a marching band from playing "Louie Louie" at a festival.
Benton Harbor Superintendent Paula Dawning cited the song's allegedly raunchy lyrics in ordering the McCord Middle School band not to perform it in Saturday's Grand Floral Parade, held as part of the Blossomtime Festival.
In a letter sent home with McCord students, Dawning said "Louie Louie" was not appropriate for Benton Harbor students to play while representing the district -- even though the marching band wasn't going to sing it.
The song "Louie Louie," written by Richard Berry in 1956, does not at all have raunchy lyrics by any stretch of the imagination. This is about rumours, indeed an urban legend, about "hidden lyrics" in the song, gleefully repeated by school kids to offend the older generation. Actually, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI spent years researching the moral panic attack, playing the song repeatedly at any conceivable speed in laboratories, and eventually concluding that they were "unable to interpret any of the wording in the record."
Obviously some parents remember the old controversy, and "remember" lyrics that only existed on imaginative handwritten sheets, never being part of the song.
7:31:44 AM
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It's official: Tony Blair is returned to office for a historic third term for Labour. At this time, Labour has secured 343 seats in the Lower House of Parliament, well more than the 324 needed for a majority. The Conservative Party has won 185 seats, and the Liberal Democrats have 56 seats.
Labour is set to have lost a large fraction of its majority, no doubt a fact that puts a slight damper on the celebration. The issue of Iraq, which was quite divisive in the UK, left Labour open to vulnerability from the Liberal Democrats, which has become a born-again leftist party with its opposition to the Iraq war, as well as the traditional Tory opposition which has been strengthened, if not back to old heights, under Michael Howard. However, the LD only won a few net seats, taking a hammering from the right by the Conservatives. In the UK's first-past-the-post system, it is difficult for a third party to get any significant traction.
The net gains of the Tories, 29 seats as of now, may save Michael Howard's position in charge of the Conservative Party. He can argue he has strengthened the party after the disastrous results in two previous elections.
Saddam's old pal George Galloway, ousted from Labour for his treacherous remarks, actually managed to find a seat he could take from Labour, and barely ousted Oona King from her seat. Unsurprisingly, he delivered a scathing attack on Blair. He also used the opportunity to attack the electoral official, much in line with his character. Galloway's new constituency in East London is dominated by Bangladeshi Muslims, and his opponent Oona King is a black Jew. It's certainly to her credit that the traitor's win was marginal.
7:01:24 AM
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I downloaded and installed the Google Web Accelerator yesterday. So far it claims to have saved me 3 minutes of webpage download time, even though I of course have no way of knowing whether that is true. It adds a proxy service, caching, prefetching and compression, which apparently increases download times.
4:54:18 AM
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New research indicates that global dimming is ending as air pollution is down. Of course that can't be good news:
Our planet's air has cleared up in the past decade or two, allowing more sunshine to reach the ground, say two studies in Science this week.
Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.
That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.
So: Beat global warming. Fill up your SUV with fully leaded, remove exhaust filters and drive.
PS: Fred Singer had a good answer when receiving a "flat earth award" for his skepticism on global warming.
Via email from SoccerDad, who blogs about many interesting things but apparently leaves environmental issues to me.
2:05:09 AM
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That settles it. The mobster is neither glad to see you nor having a gun in his pocket.
12:43:28 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2005; 06:44:13.
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