The Economist-7/4/2002 Europe: The Danish tack Right on immigration gets some coverage here. The word is out-Muslims are going to Sweden now since they can't import their sub-adult brides from the "homeland" anymore (a new Danish law states that foreign spouses that are brought to Denmark must be 24 or over in age). A friend of mine said she heard about the law on NPR, but it was in the context of a Danish man and his Senegalese partner having to move across the strait to Sweden. Needless to say-these two are not the primary targets of the law-but NPR acts as if they are. United States: J. C. Watts is leaving office. The article notes that Watts was basically a token-the word was he was OK as a politician but like fellow athlete Steve Largent (now running for governor)-insufferably dumb. Though not as dumb as Maxine Waters probably. Africa & Middle East: Something must have happened to the Africa correspondent in mid-week because this is the only only article in that section this week. What's up with that? In any case, this story about the Congo war is fascinating. I highly recommend King Leopold's Ghost for those who want a historic background on the situation that goes further than 1960. Asia: L. K. Advani is certainly an unsavory character. No doubt many Muslims fear his rise to power in India. He's like Vajpayee without the baby-fat-a lean Hindu lion ready to tear a big one into a Muslim's hide. But a renewed Hindu India might be good for the West in its battles with Islam. China seems like it's going to swallow Xinjiang and let the West tackle Islam while it bides its time. India on the other hand can't avoid a confrontation with the green colossus to its west and east. Unlike Islamic fanatics-Hindus restrict their dogmatism and idiocy to the confines of their country, their cultural realm. Just like Jewish fanatics that don't export their lunacy-Hindu reactionaries can serve as strategic allies. I agree that Advani isn't the most outstanding of characters, but is he a worse figure than Jiang Zhemin or Mahathir Mohammed? India is held to a higher standard because it is a democracy-but my ancestors have been gutting the country for centuries and the Congress party is a craven beast that relies on the votes of Muslims to get into office. So like American politicians they will deny the fact that Islam's enmity to the idol-worshipping and uncircumcised heathen redoubt that is India is part of the problem. The days will come when we need hard men. Business: The end of Vivendi? See the article. Finance & Economics: The Italians are keeping their own capital markets. Good for them! Now how about not assassinating ministers for suggesting a loosening of labor laws? Science & Technology: If developmental biology is your thing, check this out:

THE human body may be beautifully symmetrical on the outside; internally, however, it is anything but. The heart is to the left, the liver to the centre-right, the troublesome appendix lurks low down on the right—at least in 99.99% of people. The remaining few have a condition called situs inversus, in which right and left are confused and the organs are laid out in a mirror-image of the normal arrangement.

Weird wild stuff. Books & Arts: A history of socialism getting a good review? Yeah. I might check read this as a cautionary tale. But look at this quote and now I wonder if the Islamic world isn't stuck in 1900 rather than 1200:

IN 1895, Edith Lanchester, a member of the Battersea branch of the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF), in south London, told her upper-middle-class family that she was going to live with a self-educated fellow member and worker, an Irishman named James Sullivan. Her brothers seized her, bound her by the wrists and had her committed to a lunatic asylum—from which commissioners reluctantly released her after a press campaign was stirred up by Sullivan and some fellow members. Lanchester's cause had been taken up with some reluctance both by the SDF and the Independent Labour Party, who were all too aware that many of their members would be more shocked by Lanchester's own actions than by her brothers'.