Britain's 'Last Tommy' Laid To Rest

I felt bad about not commenting on the passing, two weeks ago of Britain's Last Tommy, and last surviving veteran of World War I, Harry Patch ('Tommy' was to the Brits what ‘GI Joe’ is to Americans, Mr. Patch was the last living member of Britain's WWI army). Mr. Patch was laid to rest today in a ceremony with full military honors.

Like his countryman and fellow British WWI vet, Henry Allingham who passed away a few weeks earlier, Mr. Patch didn't talk about his wartime experiences for eight decades, not until he was one of the last veterans left, when he felt a responsibility to speak for all those who no longer could. When he did his message was decidedly anti-war, recounting the horrors of the trench warfare that killed millions on both sides during years of what was basically a stalemate between the two sides.

Patch thought that Remembrance Day (British Veteran's Day) was just "show business", he instead paid his respects on Sept. 22, the day in 1917 when a bomb blew three of his best friends to bits and grievously wounded him. Along those lines, an amazing tribute was offered to the 111-year old vet by the British pop band Radiohead who issued "Harry Patch (in memory of)", setting lines from his Autobiography "The Last Fighting Tommy" to music (I haven't heard it yet, but from what I've heard, it's pretty moving). The song includes the lines:

I am the only one that got through
The others died wherever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth

For the record, there are only three known WWI veterans left, including 108-year old American Frank Buckles who drove an ambulance on the battlefields of France.

Americans Still Favor The Atomic Bomb

Sixty-four years ago today a single American aircraft obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima with the first nuclear weapon ever used in war (three days later we used a second A-Bomb to wipe out the city of Nagasaki), and a new poll by Quinnipiac University finds that 61% of Americans still think dropping the bomb was the right thing to do.

The Quinnipiac poll finds men, Republicans and those over-55 favor the use of the A-Bomb more than women, Democrats or people under 35, going further into the data, the only demographic to say using nuclear weapons was wrong were Blacks, 36% to 34% who said it was the right thing to do. Hispanics supported the use of the bomb 44% to 43%.

Americans still feel that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. The US military had plans on the table for a 1946 ground invasion of Japan, but they thought it would be incredibly costly - with American casualties of perhaps more than 100,000, while casualties among the Japanese (military and civilian) were projected into the millions. There is also a train of thought though that suggests another reason for using the nuclear bomb was to send a none-to-subtle message to the Soviet Union about how power in the world would be divided once the war was finally over (though the Soviets developed their own bomb just a few years later).

While 61% is still a solid majority, it is a drop from the 85% approval rate that pollsters found among Americans shortly after the war.

Make Friends, Influence People - Hillary In Africa

It looks like reports of the political demise of the Clinton machine have been greatly exaggerated. This morning former President Bill Clinton capped off his mission to North Korea with the tearful reunion of two imprisoned US journalists with their overjoyed families, meanwhile current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a more low-key start to her seven-nation mission to Africa. And while her arrival may have lacked the live TV coverage of Bill’s return, it holds a lot of importance to America’s future.

Her trip is a sign of the importance the continent will play in the coming years to the United States’ foreign and energy policies, and is an admission that right now, the US is trailing China, and to a lesser degree the European Union, Russia and India in making friends in the region. Secretary Clinton is going to try to build on the good feelings that President Obama spread last month during his visit to Ghana, but her trip will include a few doses of tough love as well.

Clinton is (again) prodding the ever-squabbling leaders of Kenya to set aside their differences and get down to the business of actually running their country. Following the disputed presidential election at the end of 2007, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki have shared power, but have gotten little done in the country, preferring to let their respective sides snipe at each other (she said in Nairobi earlier today that she is disappointed the two men have not set up a tribunal to investigate the violence that rocked the country for weeks following the 2007 election). Clinton will also push South Africa to try to exert some influence on their neighbor, Zimbabwe, to move forward on promised democratic and economic reforms in that country as well.

Other stops on the itinerary include the oil-rich states of Angola and Nigeria (the why there is pretty self-explanatory), the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo and a stop in at the Cape Verde islands off the West Coast of Africa, which like Ghana, the Obama Administration is hoping to promote as a model of democracy and stability for the rest of Africa.

But what remains to be seen is how well Africa takes to the new American attention. The Kenyans were upset that Obama passed them up (his father, of course, was born in Kenya) for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa; meanwhile other countries, most notably China, have been throwing money around in Africa without strings – like expecting the recipient countries to respect human rights or the rule of law – attached. So you have to wonder if some of Africa’s more dubious regimes (Zimbabwe for one) will take the American call to reform when they know there are countries out there willing to do business with them no matter how heinously they behave.

Russian Subs and Sloppy Reporting

You may have heard this morning that two Russian submarines have been tracked sailing in international waters far off the East Coast of the United States. Patrols like these were once common, but have been far less so since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, mostly because throughout the 1990’s the Russian Navy couldn’t afford to stage them.

Of course this isn’t stopping some commentators (notably those on Fox News) for asking if the Cold War is on again – ignoring the fact that the world’s larger navies routinely sail about in the ocean on maneuvers. One of the Russian subs is reported to currently be making a port call in Havana, Cuba.

The main reason though I’m even mentioning this is because of some sloppy reporting by Reuters (the source of the wire story I happened to read on the event). Reuters said the subs were identified as Akula-class boats and that ‘Akula’ was the NATO designation for this class of submarine (Akula is also Russian for “shark”). So far, so good. Reuters then goes on to say that the Russian designation for the Akula is “Nerpa”, which is totally wrong. The Soviet/Russian name for the Akula is “Shchuka” (Russian for “pike”, a type of fish); the Nerpa is a recently-built submarine in the Shchuka-class, but not the name for the entire line of subs (it also happened to suffer a malfunction of its fire fighting system during sea trials that killed 20 workers, a fact Reuters does get right).

Ok, so why the nit-picking? Because in journalism it’s important to get the facts right, this is especially important for a wire service like Reuters, whose stories will be picked up by possibly hundreds of news outlets and run, usually without the news outlets fact-checking the story on their own. And as my first journalism professor once explained, if you get the small details wrong then why should the reader believe you on the big ones?

I knew the class of submarines wasn’t called the Nerpa, it took me all of two minutes online to find a link confirming that fact. I’d expect that a huge organization like Reuters could at least do the same. As for what the Russian subs were doing off the coast in the first place, Russia is trying to finalize an agreement to lease the newly-finished Nerpa to the Indian Navy for about a billion rubles - nothing like a few mentions in the US media to help seal the deal.

Now That’s A Birthday Present (for Obama)

Barack Obama’s birthday was yesterday, and to commemorate the event, the Prime Minister of the Caribbean island nation of Antigua renamed his country’s tallest mountain in his honor – so now 1,300 foot tall Boggy Peak will be henceforth known as ‘Mount Obama’.

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer unveiled the name change at a ceremony attended by the US’ charge d’affaires for the Eastern Caribbean, Brent Hardt, as well as Antigua’s reigning calypso monarch, Trevor “Zacari” King, who played his rendition of “For You Barack” for the occasion. PM Spencer said that he was inspired to do something “symbolic and inspiring” after seeing Obama elected last November and said that Obama embodied “excellence, triumph, hope and dignity for all people.”

Of course nothing like this ever happens without its critics, in this case Antigua’s opposition Labour Party who called the name change “silly”, others said that it was important to remember the contributions of all people of African descent, not only to honor the first black American President. But on the whole, the move was well-received in Antigua, where Obama is very popular.

PM Spencer also announced plans to create a national park on the newly-christened Mt. Obama.

Another Example Of Why Stopping Climate Change Can't Happen Without China

If you think that there can be a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions without China, think again. According to a new report by Greenpeace, China's three biggest power companies emit more greenhouse gas than the entire nation of Great Britain. And China is also reported to have recently passed the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gasses.

The reason is China's reliance on burning coal to produce electricity, nearly 60% of their electricity comes from coal, while Chinese power plants are far less efficient, pumping out more CO2 than their Western counterparts.

China though has been reluctant to take greenhouse gas reduction seriously. During recent talks on a follow up agreement to the Kyoto Protocols, the agreement aimed at tackling global warming that is set to expire in 2012, China continued to argue that as a 'developing economy' they shouldn't be held to the same standards as the United States/Western Europe/Japan and refused to agree to any hard targets for greenhouse gas reduction. This despite the fact that China, by most accounts, has passed Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.

While the Chinese government has ambitious plans for hydroelectric, nuclear and wind-power generation, they are still, on average, opening one or two new coal-fired power plants per week to fuel their expanding economy.

Twitter - Really Nothing New

In today's New York Times, Ben Schott makes the case that Twitter's 140-character limit is really no different than limits imposed by other communications technologies from SMS text messaging to 19th Century-era telegrams.

On that note, Schott includes selections from the “The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code”, a book published in 1891 of shorthand ways to express complex thoughts in just a few characters (and thus cheaply). The code ranges from the seemingly useful (to journalists at least) 'Orangeman' for "what is the opinion on the street?", to the fortune cookie-sounding 'Acuate' for "you will accomplish but little", to the downright odd 'Hub' for "can you recommend a competent housekeeper?"

Check out the Times piece then try to work a few into your daily Twittering/Texting, just be ready to give explanations to your puzzled readers.

Georgia vs. Russia, Round 2

Summer is sequel season, so perhaps it's inevitable that as we approach the one year anniversary of the Russia-Georgia conflict (this coming Saturday for those of you keeping score) the two sides are talking bluntly about another conflict.

Georgia is warning of a new wave of Russian aggression after Russian troops briefly set up and then removed an observation post on what the Georgians say is their side of the poorly-defined Georgia-South Ossetia border. The Georgians were quick to call this an attempted land grab. The Russians, meanwhile, say that Georgian forces have twice shot mortars towards the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Monitors from the European Union in the area couldn't confirm either allegation, though Russia's Defense Ministry was quick to announce that they would use force to protect Russian peacekeeping forces and South Ossetian citizens from Georgian "aggression".

All of this is sounding a lot like the situation last year, when both sides spent months trying to provoke the other, mostly over Georgia's other breakaway region, Abkhazia. On a number of occasions, Georgia flew drone aircraft over Abkhazia, in direct violation of a cease-fire agreement; while Russia sent in troops to upgrade a railroad that runs between Russia and Abkhazia. In the end, the conflict started over South Ossetia after Georgian forces shelled Tskhinvali on the night of August 7/8. The five day conflict devastated Georgia's military forces (while also illuminating some of the weaknesses of the Russian side as well), and ended with Russian troops stationed in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow then recognized as independent states.

Back in May I wrote that it was fairly likely there could be a new Russian-Georgian conflict this summer, mostly because every side involved could rationalize an upside to a renewal of fighting. That's why it's important to look at these events along the border not just as minor nuisances, but as potentially the start of something big.

The Greening of Greenland

Sometimes the biggest signs of change are the smallest. The BBC's Stephen Sackur found this out while visiting Greenland when he was served a dinner with a side order of leeks, leeks that were grown in the chef's garden just outside the kitchen.

The idea that anything could grow in Greenland - which despite the name is mostly covered in ice - is a clear indication of how at the same time global climate change is likely spelling doom for some island nations like Kiribati and the Maldives, for places like Greenland, it could lead to huge new opportunities.

Greenland is thought to be teeming with oil, natural gas and precious metal deposits that until now were locked under the Arctic ice. But by some projections, within the next two decades, Greenland could be exploiting and exporting these riches, promising a boon to the 56,000 Greenlanders. But according to Sackur, Greenlanders right now seem most excited about the prospects of growing their own vegetables and planting a forest of Siberian Larch on their treeless island.

Make The Cybraphon Happy!

From the folks at Wired magazine comes this story of three UK-based artists and their musical creation. With a steampunk ethic they loaded up an antique wardrobe with a collection of musical instruments, programmed a MacBook to play them all and dubbed the thing the "Cybraphon". That itself would make this a mildly interesting story, but thankfully artists Kirby, Ziggy Campbell and Tommy Perman took the next step and hooked the Cybraphon into the Internet.

Not only did they do that, but they programmed it to constantly scan Twitter, MySpace and Facebook looking for references of itself - the more references the Cybraphon sees, the 'happier' it gets and its musical performance reacts accordingly; the fewer the references, the Cybraphon starts feeling unloved and its mood is reflected in its music. But even popularity gets to the Cybraphon eventually, and it will invariably slip into 'depression'. “We modeled it on an insecure, egotistical band,” Kirby explains. So in essence the Kirby, Ziggy and Tommy have created an automated teenager.

If you want to have a go at cheering the Cybraphon up you can follow it on Twitter or Facebook.