The Constitution

Preliminary results from French referendum on European Constitution are in: Chirac and Europe have lost, 55%:45%. Who has won? Nobody, probably...

Mr. Chirac did not have to put the Constitution to referendum; National Assembly has authority to pass the law ratifying it. However, he wanted to show he has strong support, whatever his policy. Europe is paying for this hubris.

Analysts claim that anti-Constitution mood has very little to do with The Union and its proposed Constitution; "no" vote is simply a message to the government is question. This is probably so. However, I don't think I am in a mood to support those who only want subsidies from Europe: I think my next car will be of Czeck manufacture.

Hot Air

When American energy lobby and their tame scientists and Presidents deny dangers of global warming (or, more PC put, climate change), that's not news. But when a widely respected senior scientist, a botanist David Bellamy joins them (in a letter to New Scientist, a reputable British weekly for amateur science fans), that is something completely different.

George Monbiot of AlterNet did an excellent job of tracing Bellamy's sources. It would be highly entertaining were it not sad.

See IceAgeNow, an amusing site of a charlatan or fraud peddling his book on incoming ice age.

Not all people giving space to climate change skeptics are cuckoos or frauds; see, for example, here.

Actual climatologists debunk most outrageous "sceptics'" claims, comment recent news and generally conduct a lively discussion here.

Food, Oil and Words

Mr. George Galloway, a rogue British ex-Labour PM, testified before US House Committee on Unameric... oops, no, this was Senate sub-committee, on his alleged role in scams around Iraq oil for food program. Well, the guy simply destroyed poor clueless senators (you see, no use of lobbyist-prepared statements in a real debate). Excerpts, CNN comment, BBC comment and full video.

The guy is probably generally not blameless, but this is a gem, if only for entertainment value of its brilliant rhetoric.

Populism

This one is from Croatia, but all of my compatriots who perhaps might read this speak English, anyway... So:

We had local elections yesterday. The party I actively support (for the lack of anything better) (SDP) got 40% votes in Zagreb, bringing it to a single seat short of absolute majority in municipal assembly. The results in boroughs are even better. So, why am I depressed?

There it this guy who was instrumental in bringing Zagreb SDP from the dead a decade ago. The man is incorrigible populist: he appears everywhere, has quick solutions for all problems, taking shortcuts and openly ignoring laws. When he was "demoted" to deputy-mayor after a drunk driving incident, he somehow managed to continue to "rule" totally ignoring the new (incompetent) mayor. He had his successes, but also undertook several grandiose project of dubious values.

So, SDP conducted a number of low-profile opinion polls and concluded that electorate wants its bombastic, corner-cutting and scandal prone former mayor. Yesterday's results confirmed that. Sigh...

Church and Holocaust

There's an op-ed text in NYT on failure of The Holy See to admit and apologize for its failure to use its moral authority to stop the Holocaust. (As usually, the author only mentions six millions Jewish victims; others, like Romani, are forgotten again.) It is mentioned that bishops in France and Germany did issue statements expressing regret for their passivity.

In Croatia, priests, monks and nuns played very mixed role. Some were rabid nazis, some very actively helped Partisans (including actual combat); most were in between. Head of Church in Croatia, Archbishop of Zagreb and later cardinal Alojzije Stepinac was tried and sentenced to long prison term as collaborator; the trial left a bit to be desired in impartiality and judicial correctness department. Stepinac is now considered a victim of Communist tyranny, but I am not so sure...

Anyway, I think that the Catholic Church in Croatia would do well to express its regret it did not do more to stop the slaughter of Jews, Romany, Serbs and Communists and others opposing the occupiers and the puppet regime in wartime Croatia. It could have probably have done more to temper the post-war regime excesses, too.

Europe 25, a year later

Cheap labour from 'the East' has not swamped the West (except for jobs Germans and French don't think about taking for decades now). Eastern economies did not collapse under the pressure of competition once barriers got dismantled (though some, like pampered Slovenian food industry, did feel the heat). All said, the enlargement went surprisingly smoothly.

And yet, people in some of 'core' EU countries, France and Netherlands, are very unlikely to approve the new European Constitution. What is the problem they have with it? Most, of course, never read it, and don't have a clue what's in there. I won't rehash analyses of what the voters are protesting against (mostly having nothing to do with Europe). I will just say I am sad that their petty nationalism and xenophobia (and they are so quick to accuse us 'lesser nations' of that), their fear of change and their domestic quarrels will lead them to betray the European dream.

Today, when China and the rest of Asia is growing at astonishing rate, and that supposedly friendly giant across the Atlantic has grown positively mad, we need strong Europe more that ever. Perhaps not the United States of Europe, but certainly not the bunch of quarreling, suspicious neighbours of the second millenium.

Another Europe Day

60 years ago an era of unthinkable evil ended, hopefully for good. During the last 15 years new Croatian politicians tried to distance themselves from anything remotely smacking of Communism (and some of them received hefty contributions from extreme right wing emigration), so the theme of Croatian antifascism was rarely brought up. This year, however, I see it more on places like public TV, and finally young people indoctrinated in right propaganda can catch a glimpse of the fact that my little country, through struggle of Communist-led Partisans, did more to defeat fascism than all of occupied Western and Central Europe combined (including France).

Somehow, people in power from 1990 managed to make the puppet Ustaše regime in Zagreb more visible to the world than the fact the Partisans kept half of the country free in the middle of the war, even before any help from Allies began to trickle in. That perception, no doubt, helped to introduce 'balanced approach' to war crimes in ex-Yugoslavia (the primary reason for which is, of course, to justify almost total indifference 'the world', Europe included, displayed towards murderous fascism that differed from that of sixty-something years ago only in size and lack ofphysicall power, discipline and technical sophistication).

For some of my readers (if there indeed are such creatures at all) the fact that strong Partisan movement in what was Yugoslavia was Croat-led, or that 'Balkan war' 1990-1995 was not result of 'centuries of hatred' with all sides being more or less alike but the case of a fascist regime (masquerading as socialist, but that is nothing new, either) gripping to power through expansionist wars and virulent ultra-nationalism might be new. If so, I will be happy to provide more arguments and proof. But I have wandered way beyond the intended theme of this post.

Happy Europe Day!