TOM FRIEDMAN POINTS OUT A PARADOX:

But next to the meat imported from the U.S. was a tiny asterisk, which warned that it might contain genetically modified organisms — G.M.O.’s.

My initial patriotic instinct was to order the U.S. beef and ask for it “tartare,” just for spite. But then I and my lunch guest just looked at each other and had a good laugh. How quaint! we said. Europeans, out of some romantic rebellion against America and high technology, were shunning U.S.-grown food containing G.M.O.’s — even though there is no scientific evidence that these are harmful. But practically everywhere we went in Davos, Europeans were smoking cigarettes — with their meals, coffee or conversation — even though there is indisputable scientific evidence that smoking can kill you. In fact, I got enough secondhand smoke just dining in Europe last week to make me want to have a chest X-ray.

So pardon me if I don’t take seriously all the Euro-whining about the Bush policies toward Iraq — for one very simple reason: It strikes me as deeply unserious. It’s not that there are no serious arguments to be made against war in Iraq. There are plenty. It’s just that so much of what one hears coming from German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac are not serious arguments. They are station identification.

They are not the arguments of people who have really gotten beyond the distorted Arab press and tapped into what young Arabs are saying about their aspirations for democracy and how much they blame Saddam Hussein and his ilk for the poor state of their region. Rather, they are the diplomatic equivalent of smoking cancerous cigarettes while rejecting harmless G.M.O.’s — an assertion of identity by trying to be whatever the Americans are not, regardless of the real interests or stakes.

Or steaks.

WELL, SOMEBODY IS OPTIMISTIC about the future of space travel. . . .

BRENDAN LOY HAS POSTED IMAGES OF NEWSPAPER FRONT PAGES regarding the Columbia crash on his site. It’s interesting to see the differences — and similarities — across the board.

THIS ARTICLE BY LEONARD DAVID of Space.com looks at what will likely happen to the space station as a result of the Columbia crash.

HERE’S MORE ON INDIA’S MOURNING for Kalpana Chawla.

My reaction, echoing a comment I saw on someone’s blog somewhere, is that this is a classic American story: from immigrant to astronaut in one decade. And people are hardly even paying attention to that angle because it just seems, well, normal. Of course you can move here, work hard, and if you’re good enough, become an astronaut! Of course.

WE TALK ABOUT LIABILITY FOR FALLING DEBRIS IN MY SPACE LAW CLASS, but — though there has, in fact, been damage to things on the ground from falling debris before — the issue always seemed somewhat remote. But then there’s this:

NASA is accepting claims from people who say they were injured or their property was damaged by falling Columbia debris.

The space agency is coordinating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address claims requiring immediate action, officials said Sunday.

A foot-long metal bracket smashed through the roof of a dentist’s office in Nacogdoches, Texas. A jagged, half-moon-shaped metal piece about 5-feet long landed in a front yard in the town. . . .

An 18-inch piece of what appeared to be duct piping put a dent in the roof of Rice High School in Navarro County. Debris was also found near the pitcher’s mound of the school’s baseball field and track.

At least no one on the ground was hurt.

IT’S A BOY!

PALESTINE, SCHMALESTINE: Reader Adam Edwards emails:

The Shuttle exploded over Palestine. Doesn’t that tragic fact give you pause?Could this just be a terribly ironic coincidence or could God be trying to warn us?

I’ve gotten a lot of email along these lines, most of it less succinct than Mr. Edwards’. But I think readers have it all wrong. First, if you’ll look at the map, you’ll see that the Shuttle actually exploded over “Tennessee Colony” — an obvious warning from God that I, and other members of the Rocky Top Brigade will soon take over the Blogosphere. It was also over Frankston, thus providing an obvious warning (especially in connection with “Tennessee Colony”) that Chirac’s neocolonialist efforts are doomed. Or maybe it was over “Nineveh” — an obvious sign from God that we should support the Assyrian people’s desire for freedom in the face of Muslim tyranny. (Don’t believe me? Visit this website — Nineveh.com — and see for yourself. Note the prominent mention of Columbia and the fervent pro-Americanism.) Coincidence? I think not. It’s a sign from God!

But seriously, the real meaning of the Shuttle exploding above Palestine is obvious, and it’s directed to Yasser Arafat: If you don’t want all kinds of high-tech exploding American stuff to come down on you, you’d better get on the right side of history before it’s too late.

It’s a message from God, Yasser. Put down those baby wipes, and think about it.

PUNDITWATCH IS UP! NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe gets high marks.

SMOKING GUN? HELL, WE’VE GOT THE WHOLE GUNMAN!

SADDAM Hussein’s senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq’s secret arsenal.

His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush’s claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.

Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.

They include:

AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;

A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;

TWO underground bunkers in Iraq’s Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.

William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam’s arsenal, said Mahmoud’s information is “the smoking gun”.

You’d think this would be getting more attention.

UPDATE: Several readers pointed out the similarities between the above account and this one from Debka dated January 21. Given that the bodyguard’s name is a pseudonym, it could be the same guy — though he explicitly mentions Hamdi Mamoud / Hamouda in this interview. Of course, that could be a red herring, too.

Conclusion? Beats me. The reason we’re not hearing more about this could be because it’s not true — which is always the way to bet when you don’t know any more — or it could be because, well, it is and it’s not time yet. Stay tuned. And if you’ve got any other leads on this story, let me know.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Here’s some Congressional testimony of mine from about ten years ago on how to move away from a bureaucratic model and toward a more market-oriented approach to space. Much of it, sadly, remains timely.

THIS STORY REPORTS A “CRUSHING DEFEAT” FOR GERHARD SCHROEDER:

The conservative Christian Democrats won 48 percent of the vote in Schroeder’s home state of Lower Saxony, gaining 12 points over the last election five years ago to wrest the statehouse from the Social Democrats, exit polls and early returns compiled for ARD national television showed. The Social Democrats were at 33 percent, down from nearly 48 percent last time.

In Hesse state, the data showed the Christian Democrats surging to 50 percent from 39 percent in 1999, with the Social Democrats slumping to 27 percent from 39 percent. The boost in support left the Christian Democrats poised to drop a centrist coalition ally and govern the state alone.

The story says that it was economics, not his anti-American stance, that hurt him. I wonder, though. At the very least, it demonstrates that his anti-American positions were not a sufficient distraction.

ROBERT SAWYER confirms the story of a Canadian Broadcasting Company interviewer who asked him about American “arrogance,” but says that we shouldn’t be too hard on her:

The interviewer (I’m sorry, but I don’t know her name, or even

what city she was in — Newsworld does production across Canada;

I’ve been on Newsworld many times, but never had been interviewed

by this woman) did indeed ask me a question related to whether

this was a terrorist attack, and whether it had been arrogant of

the Americans to launch a shuttle now. The idea that it was

terrorism hadn’t even occurred to me — it looked like a tragic

accident, and I was reliving my memories of when CHALLENGER had

blown up all those years ago. So, the question took me by

surprise.

In any event, I told her no, it wasn’t arrogance, and added that

the Bush administration had very much had a business-as-usual

policy post-September 11; I can’t remember exactly how I phrased

it, but my thought was that if you let terrorists freeze you into

doing nothing out of fear, they’ve won. I wish I remembered her

exact words better, and my own, but, like everyone else I was in

shock.

I’m sure she didn’t mean to be offensive, and it was quite clear

during our brief interview that she was being distracted by all

sorts of chatter in her earpiece (she first introduced me as

Robert Fischer, who is a staff reporter the CBC).

Well, I don’t know if that lets her off the hook, or just means that her guard was down and her prejudices were showing. You can decide that for yourself.

UPDATE: Arthur Silber has some thoughts on charges of “arrogance.”

GRIEVE, AND MOVE ON: A lot of people seem to have missed the link I put in below, so here’s a pointer to my lengthy sum-up post on Columbia over at GlennReynolds.com.

A PREVIOUSLY-SCHEDULED CARGO ROCKET has launched for the Space Station.

SMOKING GUNS: Already the “advance warning” stories are coming out: Here’s one in the Washington Post and here’s one in the Boston Herald. But these kind of miss the point: everyone who knew anything about the Shuttle knew it was dangerous — among my space-community friends, the estimate was that it would average one crash out of fifty launches. (Believing that, most of us would have gone anyway — I would.)

Like so many things, the press will focus on the short-term, looking for “whistleblowers” and “smoking gun” memos. But the real problem goes back to the original design decisions for the Shuttle, made in the early 1970s, in which the desire to save a few billion dollars up front imposed long term costs, and dangers, on the nation down the line.

UPDATE: Tim Blair notes that various idiots are already trying to make political hay.

WILLIAM SJOSTROM reports that traditionally anti-American columnist Julie Burchill has decided to weigh in in favor of war with Iraq — and in The Guardian, no less. Excerpt:

The new enemies of America, and of the west in general, believe that these countries promote too much autonomy, freedom and justice. They are the opposite of socialism even more than they are the opposite of capitalism. They are against light, love, life – and to attempt to pass them the baton of enlightenment borne by the likes of Mandela and Guevara is woefully to misunderstand the nature and desires of what Christopher Hitchens (a life-long man of the left) described as “Islamo-fascism”.

When you look back at the common sense and progressiveness of arguments against American intervention in Vietnam, Chile and the like, you can’t help but be struck by the sheer befuddled babyishness of the pro-Saddam apologists.

She then proceeds to demolish the standard lefty arguments against war (“it’s all about oil,” etc.). As Sjostrom notes: “This is simply a massive admission from a figure on the British left. For Americans, imagine if Ramsey Clark admitted that the war might be a good idea.”

UPDATE: Then there’s this, in today’s Observer:

Bosnia and Rwanda made the case for action, because inaction was far worse and its consequences were morally intolerable. In the former, the West (rarely acting in concert) took the course of diplomacy backed up by the incredible threat of mild force. The Yugoslavian situation was deemed to be too complicated and too dangerous to resolve by firm action. Didn’t they all just enjoy killing each other?

There were sanctions, international mediations, peace brokers shuttled hither and yon arranging ceasefires that were broken, usually by the Bosnian Serbs. The United Nations Security Council declared six safe areas for Bosnian Muslims to be protected by lightly equipped UN troops. One of these was Srebrenica.

On 11 July 1995, almost in slow motion, we watched the Serbs enter the safe haven, disarm the Dutch protectors and separate the men and boys from women and small children. And as I saw General Ratko Mladic pacifying a crying Muslim woman, I think I knew, as he certainly did, what was going to happen to her husband or son.

A year earlier, on another continent, we had again looked on while one of the peoples of a sovereign nation, Rwanda, slaughtered another in their hundreds of thousands. Once more, a small UN force was brushed aside in the early stages. Intervention was never seriously considered.

If leaders must take responsibility for these terrible failures, then so must those who always urge inaction. Over Bosnia, Kosovo and over Afghanistan, voices on both the Left and Right have been consistently raised to object to the use of force. Where these voices have belonged to pacifists, they have my respect, but most often they have belonged to the purely selfish, the pathologically timid, or to those who somehow believed that however bad things were in Country X, the Americans were always worse.

It may be too much to hope for, but I think the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the anti-American left is beginning to sink in.

TODD RUNDGREN: NOSTALGIA ACT. I went to see Rundgren last night at the historic Tennessee Theater. It was a solo show — not “unplugged” as he had a lot of tapes, sequenced stuff, etc. going, but no other musicians. I had a front-row seat. He’s not one of my favorites, but I’ve always respected him. Not last night. He very obviously didn’t care about the audience, barely went through the motions (he hit wrong notes on every song on which he played instruments) and generally put on the worst show I’ve ever seen by a professional musician.

And most people didn’t care. The crowd was a bunch of aging boomers, around ten years older than me on average. They were on an obvious nostalgia trip, and rushed the stage for autographs afterward (he gave out one or two, shook a couple of hands, then fled). I’m glad they had a good time, but I regarded it as a wasted evening. I sat with two other musicians — one of whom had seen Rundgren play the same venue 30 years ago along with Free, Montrose, and Alice Cooper (it was a better show, he said) — and they were equally disappointed. Still, with around 1,000 people there, and tickets at 25 bucks a piece, he probably walked away with $10-15,000 for about an hour’s work.

Nice for him, but I won’t go to see him again. And it’s sad to see someone perform when they’d clearly rather be doing anything else.

SORRY FOR THE HIATUS: I went to see Todd Rundgren (bad choice; more on that later). Meanwhile, here’s Mark Steyn:

Nonetheless, this will not be as traumatisingly mesmeric as the Challenger disaster. The yellow-ribbon era died with September 11: even if their television networks haven’t quite adjusted, Americans are tougher about these things; this is a country at war and one that understands how to absorb losses and setbacks.

What happened happened most likely because the Columbia was just so damn old and rusty. If anything, it symbolises not American “arrogance”, but what happens when the great youthful innovative spirit of the country is allowed to atrophy: the entire space programme is now dependent on a transit system a generation old. If Mr Bush really wanted to emphasise the gulf between his country and both the Islamist cave dwellers and “Old Europe”, he would announce a major renewal of the space project. A frontier is part of the US character.

For me, the saddest moment was during after-concert beers at the Old College Inn, when I heard a twentyish undergraduate wonder “do you think we’ll see a mission to Mars in our lifetimes?”

When I was 20, I didn’t wonder. But now, in my dark moments, I do.

See you tomorrow.

CRITICS OF THE APOLLO PROGRAM used to talk sneeringly about “the ghetto and the moon.” So it’s worth reposting this picture of the Moon, drawn by a teenaged boy in a Polish ghetto during the Holocaust.

The Nazi scum over at Vanguard News Network — like the Iraqis quoted in the story below — are happy about this. That says it all. I won’t link to them, though: I have some standards.

But as they, and their Iraqi comrades, rejoice about the death of the Israeli astronaut who carried this picture into space with him, the rest of us know that they’d be shitting in their pants if they ever met an actual Israeli soldier in person.

That says it all, too.

DAVID PINTO attended the Columbia launch, and knew astronaut Dave Brown. He’s posted his thoughts in a rare non-baseball entry on his blog.

UPDATE: I’ve got a lengthy “what it all means” post over at GlennReynolds.com if you can stand to read more from me.

THERE’S STREAMING VIDEO of the Shuttle break-up, a roundup of what’s known now, and lots of links to other information, here.

THIS is a tragedy, too. What makes the Columbia‘s loss more striking than the deaths of train passengers is that space exploration is forward-looking, not just part of ordinary life, and such a loss is a setback to something important, and noble. It’s not that astronauts’ lives are worth more than those of anyone else; it’s what they do, and what it stands for.

WORTHWHILE CANADIAN EMAIL:

I was very sorry to hear about the loss of the Columbia crew this morning. My family and I have great admiration for the strength and courage of the American

people. You are leaders in all of the things that are worth leading in. I know that no matter how difficult it is to deal with a tragedy of this magnitude, Americans are up to it. If history is a guide, America will respond with grief, but also with determination and intelligence.

I am proud to be a friend of the United States. I sincerely hope that the large majority of Canadians share my feelings today, not those of the CBC reporter you cited.

Patrick Brown

London, Canada

So do I. And thanks. Canada, of course, has been a fine partner in space activity — going far beyond the famous robot arm on the Shuttle.

FROM A STORY BY MARCIA DUNN, datelined 8:28 a.m. today:

Some of Columbia’s crew members didn’t want their time in space to end.

“Do we really have to come back?” astronaut David Brown jokingly asked Mission Control before the ride home.

(Via Jesse Walker).