Voting is still going on for the 2004 Weblog Awards. The Glittering Eye is a finalist for Best of the Top 1000 – 1750 Blogs.

I could really use your support. You can vote once per day until December 12.

The Economist has weighed in on reform for the United Nations (hat tip: American Future):

Long-awaited proposals on reforming the United Nations have been unveiled. Backers hope they will rejuvenate the world body. But they come at a time when the UN is under fire—especially from Americans, many of whom think it is irrelevant and corrupt

[…].

The UN’s sorry state became most obvious with the Iraq war. Those favouring the war were furious that after a decade of Security Council resolutions, including the last-chance Resolution 1441 threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not prove its disarmament, the UN could not agree to act. Anti-war types were just as frustrated that the world body failed to stop the war. But Iraq was not the UN’s only problem. It has done little to stop humanitarian disasters, such as the ongoing horror in Sudan. And it has done nothing to stop Iran’s and North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Well, yes, the Iraq War is a factor. But I believe that the critical failings of the UN were brought into sharp relief more than twenty years ago at the time of the Iran hostage crisis. What seems to be forgotten about it is that the U. S. embassy was seized and held over a very long period. I believe that the UN needed to respond to that challege: it was a challenge to diplomacy itself. Either the new revolutionary government was complicit in the hostage-taking or it was helpless or unwilling to resolve it i.e. Iran was a failed state.

International law had been violated. The local government was either unwilling or unable to correct the situation (or there was no local government). That’s a prima facie case for a UN intervention.

And there was no intervention. Nothing happened. The most obvious conclusion that Americans could draw was that the world believed that the purpose of America was to support the UN not to receive support from it.

[continue reading…]

Now where were we?

• My packmate, The Laughing Wolf, has got his own Monday morning run-down here.
• So does Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice. If you’re not reading The Moderate Voice, you’re missing out on the best blog in the blogosphere that’s not in the Top 100.
• A timely post from Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution on why some stores have longer shopping lines than others.
• media girl explains how Tom Wolfe doesn’t get the Internet and gives us her take on the new medium.
• Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo has an intriguing post on Bernard Kerik’s career from May 16, 2003 to September 3, 2003.

That’s the lot.

Here’s a quick run-down of interesting stuff from around the blogosphere:

• Abu Aardvark on Saad Eddid Ibrahim on Al Jazeera

  The rise of Al Jazeera is an important development if for linguistic reasons alone. The major broadcast networks—radio and TV—have done a lot to reduce regionalism in the U. S. over the last 50 years. I suspect we can expect the same from Al Jazeera.

• Wretchard of Belmont Club deploys his substantial powers against Al Franken.

  Rather like using a Howitzer to shoot a gnat.

• MC Masterchef of Chez Nadezhda on Uyghur separatism.

  This is a topic that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. I’ve heard it claimed that Islamic fundamentalist radicalism doesn’t have much sway among the Uyghurs although the news reports seem to indicate otherwise. Read all about it.

• Dr. Tom Boyle of CodeBlueBlog continues his fascinating series on what ails Viktor Yushchenko.
• Infidel of Duophony comments on Koreans playing Koreans on American TV. Who’da thunk it?
• Nick of A Fistful of Euros has an interesting post on the appropriate application of EU soft power.
• Juan Cole of Informed Comment presents the Monday morning casualty count from Iraq and his own proposal for election legitimacy insurance there—proportional representation.

J through Z will follow.

I just finished listening to Rudy Giuliani on the Don Imus program and was struck by three things. First, Giuliani is a powerful advocate. He was building the case that the New York Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik, would make a great Director of Homeland Security. He vigorously presented Kerik’s professional and personal credentials for the job. When he was finished you were convinced that Kerik did everything but leap over tall buildings in a single bound.

He didn’t mention that Kerik also has substantial political credentials for the job. He was a pretty enthusiastic Bush supporter, IIRC.

The second thing that I noticed was that if Giuliani is not running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he’s doing a very good imitation of it. Very nearly everything he said about Kerik also applied to Giuliani. And he made the tie-ins as well, talking about his own management experience before being elected mayor.

The third thing that occurred to me was that Democrats who believe that the Republican bench is shallow probably should think that over a little.

From New Scientist:

Public-health campaigns regularly plug exercise as a sure-fire way to
avoid an early grave. But that message may be too simplistic. For an
unhappy few, even quite strenuous exercise may have no effect on
their fitness or their risk of developing diseases like diabetes.

“There is astounding variation in the response to exercise. The vast
majority will benefit in some way, but there will be a minority who
will not benefit at all,” says Claude Bouchard of Louisiana State
University in Baton Rouge, US.

At the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress in Sydney,
Australia, last week Bouchard reported the results of a study
assessing the role of genes in fitness and health changes in response
to exercise.

In the study, 742 people from 213 families were put through a strict
20-week endurance training programme. The volunteers had not taken
regular physical activity for the previous six months. Exercise on
stationary bikes was gradually increased so that by the last six
weeks the volunteers were exercising for 50 minutes three times a
week at 75% of the maximum output they were capable of before the
study.

Previous reports indicated that there are huge variations in
“trainability” between subjects. For example, the team found that
training improved maximum oxygen consumption, a measure of a person’s
ability to perform work, by 17% on average.

But the most trainable volunteers gained over 40%, and the least
trainable showed no improvement at all. Similar patterns were seen
with cardiac output, blood pressure, heart rate and other markers of
fitness.

That really corresponds with my own experience. The only time in my life that my body really trained was during the year or so that I ran 5 miles a day, 7 days a week. In addition to three judo practices a week and two karate practices per week.

It would be interesting to know what characteristics and behaviors the most trainable had in common and what characteristics and behaviors the least trainable shared.

More on Viktor Yushchenko’s mysterious health condition from CodeBlueBlog. He’s sticking to his guns.

Today is Clayton Cramer’s birthday:

I suspect that one of these years, I will be rich enough to go do something that really matters–something that makes the world a better place. At the moment, I don’t know what that is.

If you have children and you have done your level best to rear them to be
good, decent, hard-working people then you have made the world a better
place as surely as the greatest scientist or the greatest general.

My birthday present to you is a Chinese saying (Confucius, I believe):

“If your plan is a one year plan, plant rice.
If your plan is a twenty year plan, plant trees.
If your plan is a hundred year plan, teach children.”

Happy Birthday.

From Mosnews.com:

Natalia Dmitruk, a sign language presenter with the Ukrainian TV channel UT-1 has ignored the text read by the news presenter and instead transmitted the message that the results of the elections were rigged, Russia’s NTV television reports.

Dmitruk rebelled during the morning news broadcast on Thursday. The Visti news program is the only program on Ukrainian television adapted for people with hearing difficulties.

During the broadcast, the sign language presenter ignored the text about the results of the presidential elections read by presenter Tatyana Kravchenko and instead transmitted the following:

“The results announced by the Central Electoral Commission are rigged. Do not believe them. Our president is Yushchenko. I am very disappointed by the fact that I had to interpret lies. I will not do it any more. I do not know if you will see me again.”

After the broadcast Dmitruk joined the strike announced by journalists of the UT-1 television channel on Thursday. The strikers claim they will return to work only on condition that nothing but the truth is reported.