Appease Iran?
By DANIEL PIPES

After Hitler, the policy of appeasing dictators - ridiculed by Winston Churchill as feeding a crocodile, hoping it will eat one last - appeared to be permanently discredited. Yet the policy has enjoyed some successes and remains a live temptation today in dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Academics have long challenged the facile vilification of appeasement. Already in 1961, A.J.P. Taylor of Oxford justified Neville Chamberlain's efforts, while Christopher Layne of Texas A&M currently argues that Chamberlain "did the best that he could with the cards he was dealt." Daniel Treisman, a political scientist at UCLA, finds the common presumption against appeasement to be "far too strong," while his University of Florida colleague Ralph B.A. Dimuccio calls it "simplistic."

Neville Chamberlain mistakenly declared "peace in our time" on September 30, 1938. In perhaps the most convincing treatment of the pro-appeasement thesis, Paul M. Kennedy, a British historian teaching at Yale University, established that appeasement has a long and credible history. In his 1976 article, "The Tradition of Appeasement in British Foreign Policy, 1865-1939," Kennedy defined appeasement as a method of settling quarrels "by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise," thereby avoiding the horrors of warfare. It is, he noted, an optimistic approach, presuming humans to be reasonable and peaceful.
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Solar panels are new hot property for thieves

Glenda Hoffman has an answer for the thieves, should they choose to return to her home in Desert Hot Springs, California. "I have a shotgun right next to the bed and a .22 under my pillow."

Hoffman was the victim of a theft that one industry professional has dubbed "the crime of the future". Another observer has come up with the term "grand theft solar" to describe the spate of recent burglaries in sunny California.

In May Hoffman lost 16 solar panels from her roof in three separate burglaries, one while she slept below. Happily for Hoffman her insurers have agreed to pay the $95,000 (£48,000) cost of replacing the panels. But as energy prices soar, and solar power takes off - at least in California - so opportunistic thieves have turned to the lucrative, and complicated, business of dismantling solar panels.




Suspects seized at airport

BERLIN: German police have arrested two suspected terrorists on board a Dutch aeroplane, minutes before it was due to take off from Cologne-Bonn airport for Amsterdam.

A police spokesman said a Somali man aged 23 and a 24-year-old German born in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, were escorted off the KLM flight at 6.55 am (1455 Sydney time).

The two men had been under observation for several months. A search of their apartment had turned up farewell letters in which they declared their readiness to die in a jihad or holy war, the police spokesman said.




All Eyes on Kyle
The 11th Named Storm of the Season Likely to Strengthen, Could Hit New England

Parts of New England could be in for a beating if Tropical Storm Kyle stays on its current path.

Kyle, the 11th named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, could become a Category 1 hurricane as early as Saturday, Dennis Feltgen, public affairs officer for the National Hurricane Center, said today.