The respondents were not told that the idea of "tobacco toxins" being harmful at ultra-low levels was no more than a "possibility" (in the words of the final study), nor that the researchers themselves referred to thirdhand smoke only as a "concept". If they had been told that the researchers believed that smokers spread disease "through contaminated dust and surfaces, including the frame of an infant's bed and a smoker's finger" it is fair to guess that far fewer of them would have endorsed the theory.

So far as the government is concerned, it matters not that these pledges have been made before – what matters is the opportunity to draw more dividing lines across the landscape of British politics.  "Caring" versus "cruel", as far as the eye can see.

Economists do not really understand what they are doing as they seem forced to make efforts to control aggregate variables that are not controllable in any direct sense. For example, the rate of employment (or unemployment) cannot readily be shifted by governmental mandate. At best, small and peripheral changes may be made while the emergent aggregate generated by the working of the large and complex economy remains stubbornly immune, or worse, to wrongly conceived reform efforts.

How do markets work? Standing alone, this is an inappropriate and unanswerable question. It must be replaced by the question: How do markets work under this or that set of constitutional and institutional constraints? Economists’ scientific expertise can be brought to bear on the predicted effects of alternative sets of constraints. The relevant question is not that of asking how this or that end-state or outcome may be put in place through possible collective or political action. The question becomes, instead, how can this or that set of constraints be predicted to operate so as to allow the generation of an order that meets certain criteria of desirability?

WALLACE: Why wouldn't you run for president?

PALIN: I would. I would if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family. Certainly, I would do so.

WALLACE: And how do you make that decision over the next three years?

PALIN: It's going to be thankfully a lot of time to be able to make such a decision.  Right now, I'm looking at, as I say, other potential candidates out there who are strong. They're in a position of having the luxury of having more information at their fingertips right now. So that the current events that we're talking about today, they --

WALLACE: Wait, wait, wait. Because -- you're basically saying you will consider it.

PALIN: I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country. I don't know if it's going to be every seeking a title though. It may be just doing a darn good job as a reporter or covering some of the current events.

WALLACE: But you're going to consider, you're go to go

We are a new generation, come of age in the modern world of openness and accountability. And when we say we will take power from the political elite and give it to the man and woman in the street - it's not just because we believe it will help fix broken politics. It's what we believe, full stop.

We don't believe that an arrogant, all-controlling government sitting in London passing endless laws and regulations actually makes things better. In fact, on many occasions it makes things worse.

So we'd want to give more power and control to people even without these political scandals. We'd want to reduce the power of the executive and increase the power of Parliament even if politics hadn't fallen into disrepute. We'd want to take power from the centre and give it to local communities even if we didn't have MPs in the

That's partly because no-one looked very good today. Beat France and all sorts of things suddenly seem possible. Unlikely? For sure, but this is the time for dreaming. Italy were an affront to rugby and a sad one too; Ireland were pretty poor on Saturday and I still think that David Wallace's best days are behind him (despite his rather strange Man of the Match award yesterday) and that Johnny Sexton is now a better fly-half than Ronan O'Gara.

Sadly, Wales can only get better. But will they? Shane Williams is done and without Matthew Rees and Gethin Jenkins they're weak up-front. Does Martin Williams, wonderful player though he has been, still have the ability to play for 80 minutes in test match rugby? Perhaps, but Andy Powell and Ryan Jones are limited, over-rated players excellent at biffing and boshing but not much else. They were]]> Alex Massie 2010-02-07T04:03:33+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5757177/raping-haiti.thtml Connoiseurs of the Guardian will not be surprised by this masterpiece from Mike Gonzalez. The only thing that could improve it is if his piece also found a way to blame the Israelis:

News reports still insist on the question of security, as if the pressing problem were the need to maintain public order. This argument has been used to justify placing Haitian society under the direct control of the US military – whose contingent is about to double to 20,000 – very few of whom have skills in distributing aid and assistance. The assumption of control over the airport and the naval blockade around the island's coasts are, by any definition, acts of occupation.

Haitians will recognise the similarity to the arrival of the Marines in 1915 (their presence also justified in terms of maintaining public order), or to the presence of US and UN troops under Brazilian command after 2006, whose role proved to be the repression of public protest in the name of a spurious

[Hat-tip: Mr Eugenides]