Canary in the Mine

“How did you feel when you heard that you’d been selected for martyrdom?” I asked. “It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.” I asked S to describe his preparations for the suicide mission. “We were in a constant state of worship,” he said. “We told each other that if the Israelis only knew how joyful we were they would whip us to death! Those were the happiest days of my life.” “What is the attraction of martyrdom?” I asked. “The power of the spirit pulls us upward, while the power of material things pulls us downward,” he said. “Someone bent on martyrdom becomes immune to the material pull. Our planner asked, ‘What if the operation fails?’ We told him, ‘In any case, we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah.’“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts." [If you wonder why suicide bombers willingly blow themselves up, this article gives some useful insights.]

Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business. Unless Europe reverses two trends -- low birthrates and meager economic growth -- it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. It's hard to be a great power if your population is shrivelling.

Modern Europe lacks a first-order purpose. That fact discloses itself in the London explosions. Europe is full of second-order purposes: enjoyment, economic security, vacations. What does Europe exist to affirm? It's doubtful if Europeans know anymore.

The UK Government has pressed ahead with plans to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, despite warnings from Christians that the move would worsen relations between different faiths. Representatives of more than 1,000 individual churches across the country - including Anglican, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian faiths - handed in a petition to Downing Street, urging Tony Blair to ditch the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Althought it has passed in the Commons, the Bill's expected to have a rocky road in the House of Lords.

Here is your guide to trying to understand the muddled debate that has emerged in the USA over the separation of church and state: It is fine to display the Ten Commandments on government land, but displaying them inside a courthouse violates the separation of church and state. Such seemingly arbitrary distinctions are typical of the tortured church-state divide in America. The legality of Christmas cribs on government property can be reduced, crudely, to the “plastic reindeer rule”. A crib without reindeer endorses Christianity; one with them (and preferably a Santa as well) is all right.

The election worm is likely to raise its head again, this time on TV3. The worm is not likely to be welcomed, least of all by National, whose leader, Don Brash, lacks experience in live television debates. The instant measure of a studio audience's response to what party leaders are saying is often credited - or blamed - for the success of United Future leader Peter Dunne in the last election campaign. Despite howls of protest by party leaders, TV One used the worm for the 1996 and 2002 elections. It decided last year to ditch it. TV3 is testing its own worm over the next few weeks before its two leaders' debates, the channel's director of news and current affairs, Mark Jennings, said.

Defence chief Bruce Ferguson has fired a shot at those who want a new New Zealand flag. In a speech to the RSA's annual conference in Wellington, Air Marshal Ferguson spoke out against attempts to force a referendum, saying New Zealand's present flag had a proud history. "I joined under that flag, I served under that flag. I shall retire under that flag and I shall honour it for the rest of my life." His comments came after the 300 delegates at the conference passed a motion that the flag should be changed only if there was a substantial majority, and calling for the issue to be removed from the political arena.

We're becoming paler again. The proportion of British immigrants coming to New Zealand continues to rise, and they now account for almost a third of new residents. Of all approvals for permanent residence in the last financial year, 30.8 per cent - 15,045 people - came from Britain. The British accounted for 16 per cent of immigrants in the 1997/98 year, when it was the largest country of origin for immigrants. Immigration Minister Paul Swain concedes that the controversial toughening of English language tests for migrants might have been a factor in the drop-off from other countries. The Government will keep its immigration target at 45,000 for the present year, Mr Swain says.

New research highlights a frustrating fact about science: What was good for you yesterday frequently will turn out to be not so great tomorrow. The sobering conclusion came in a review of major studies published in three influential medical journals between 1990 and 2003, including 45 highly publicized studies that initially claimed a drug or other treatment worked. Subsequent research contradicted results of seven studies -- 16 percent -- and reported weaker results for seven others, an additional 16 percent. That means nearly one-third of the original results did not hold up, according to the report in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.