Food Summits.

The global food crisis, I call it a crisis but for most countries it is simply an inconvenience, is likely to resolve itself in the next couple of years as higher prices make it more economically viable for farmers in developing countries to invest in more efficient farming practices. In politics however the motto is "Something must be done, this is something let's do it!".

Politicians don't like admitting that there is bugger all that they can do and the problem will sort itself out without help from them. Hence the ever growing number of 'food summits' that have been called by the UK, South Africa, Latin America and of course the masters of pointless showboating the UN. As an aside I see that Israel is disgusted at the presence of Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmanotgonnabothertospellhisnameright, despite the fact that he is the only major leader willing to push for a very sudden drop in demand for food, kosher food in particular.

I'm just impressed that the UN didn't get Zimbabwe to host the conference. The general consensus of these meetings of the finest minds of our lifetime is that we should really produce more food if we don't want to have a shortage of food.

Quote Of The Day.

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail asks a very good question:

According to parliamentary expenses smuggled out under the radar last Friday, Tony Blair remortgaged his constituency home in Geordieland for £300,000 - twice what it was worth. He then claimed back the interest payments from the British taxpayer.

Someone please explain to me which bit of this isn't stealing.

Me Busy.

Posting light. Sentences short. Back weekend.

Diversity Thriving In Prisons.

Uh oh, there is a problem in one of our prisons:

A Prison Service report has expressed concern about problems with the high number of Muslim inmates at one of Britain's high-security jails.

A review of Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire found staff were fearful of doing the wrong thing, "shifting the power dynamic towards prisoners".

The prison service famously sacks officers for insensitivity if they fail to show respect for Osama Bin Laden so it isn't hard to guess why prison officers are unwilling to confront prison gangs who recruit among Muslims. Still at least they can't be accused of failing to act on the basis of the new report:

The report recommended an "intelligence assessment of the Muslim prisoner group of concern and their possible activities" and "more cultural awareness and diversity training".
...............
The Prison Service said a "programme of work" was planned "to increase mutual understanding between staff and prisoners", including a "development day for staff on the Muslim faith".

So "diversity training" is the solution to prison officers being terrified of being insensitive towards ethnic minority inmates! It's like having petrol filled fire extinguishers.

Disagreeing With Moonbat Violates International Law.

George Moonbat claims that former American ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton should be arrested for breaking international law when he visits the Hay-on-Wye book festival. About 6- comments in one of the commentators asks:

"John Bolton was not an elected politician - his most senior position was 18 months (or so) as UN ambassador. What did he do there that was illegal ?".

Good question, because even if you accept that the invasion of Iraq was a war crime perpetrated by Chimp-McHitlerburton in order to steal oil then it is still hard to see what crime John Bolton has committed, he did not plan ot execute the invasion. All the specific examples of Bolton's perfidy that Monbiot gives come down to John Bolton having different opinions to George Monbiot. For instance he cites Bolton's negotiation of the end of an arms control treaty with Russia, the treaties themselves were never signed on the basis that the could never be repealed, but in the hands of the far left this is a violation of international law.

Laws are supposed to be an agreed set of rules and principles by which people can adjust their behaviour to stay legal, in the hands of the far left 'law' is a series of elephant traps by which political opponents can be ensnared and silenced for doing things that nobody was aware was illegal. These people seriously wonder why the United States doesn't sign up to the International Criminal Court.

'Protection'

In Richard Gott's latest article the former paid KGB stooge, writes:

Land devoted to growing cannabis, coca and poppies has grown five-fold since the 1960s, and the Farc found new support by offering its protection to rural workers on these plantations.

That's awfully good of FARC, protecting all those poor workers. It seems to be a stock euphemism of his, since in a previous article he wrote:

Land in Colombia devoted to growing cannabis, coca and poppies has grown fivefold since the 1960s, and the Farc has long provided protection to the rural workers on these plantations, as well as exacting tribute from the drug barons.

Using almost the exact same phrase to absurdly misrepresent a situation several months apart is very strange. Writers tend to express similar ideas in different ways in order to keep it fresh, the fact that Gott is repeating himself suggests to me that these are talking points he has agreed to propagate. It wouldn't surprise me if he is back on the payroll of a foreign government.

Mr Courage Strikes Again

It's not everyday that there is a world leader inside Ten Downing Street so it was a shame to see that the Dalai Lama's meeting with Gordon 'Courage' Brown had to take place at Lambeth Palace, in order to assure the Chinese government that it wasn't a real meeting. As everyone predicted the Chinese aren't satisfied even after this minor appeasement and the Tibetans are equally unimpressed.

In other Brown related news I saw this headline today:

Brown: It's me ... or a suicide pact.

I'll get the rope.

WTF!?

Harriet Harman for PM!

Labour would get below 20% if she was in charge.

Xenu Be Praised.

Unsurprisingly there will be no charges against the 15 year old arrested for calling Scientology a cult. Then again as Ron Hubbard knew full well the purpose of legal harassment isn't to obtain a conviction or a judgment but to cause problems for the 'Suppressive Person'.

Scientologists have many ridiculous beliefs such as we are all descended from the souls of aliens killed by Xenu, psychiatrists made Hitler do it, John Travolta is straight and that babies should be born silently. However when it comes to how the legal system works they understand just fine.

Over-Centralised Britain.

Much as I dislike traffic wardens can someone explain why councils need specific permission from Westminster to recruit them?

Martin Jacques

Is Martin Jacques the most pompous, ignorant and degenerate writer in Britain today? Based on his latest column sucking up the Burmese Junta I would have to say that he is a contender.

Living The SP Lifestyle.

Libertarians & Psuedo Libertarians.

Although in most aspects of public policy I want the government to have a much reduced role, central government in particular, I am slightly wary of self professed libertarians. In part it is for reasons I explained here but that isn't the only reason.

Many of those considered to be libertarians are not opposed to a powerful government in principle, just to pluralistic and democratic governments in particular. Not all libertarians are like this, some like Milton Friedman or PJ O'Rourke are entirely consistent in advancing liberty but others who don the mantle of libertarianism are nothing of the sort and are psuedo-libertarians at best.

Take the prominent US writer Lew Rockwell, who is generally associated with libertarianism and has a long term association with Ron Paul. Today he shares his deep thoughts on the Korean War:

When the Syngman Rhee regime in South Korea, which launched the war on the North in cahoots with the Truman regime here, also murdered at least 100,000 of its own people, with US supervision and approval. Truman's Air Force then drowned more than a million civilians in the North by deliberately bombing the dykes. Today, despite a militarist regime still supervised by US occupation forces, the South Korean people want peace, trade, and travel with the poor people of the North, no matter how rotten their socialist government. The US occupation prevents this. US Out! (Thanks to Ralph Raico and Antiwar.com

If he is aware of a single credible source that backs up the idea that it was South Korea that launched the war then he is keeping it to himself. At the start of the war the American and South Korean forces were so unprepared that the surprise attack managed to drive them all the way down the peninsular where they had to mount a desperate last stand just to cling on in Korea which makes no sense if they were the ones who launched an invasion. However rather than relying on reputable historians or using his brain, Rockwell prefers to simply parrot North Korean propaganda that is laughably dishonest. For someone who professes a distrust of all powerful states this is rather surprising behaviour.

It is true that Syngman Rhee was a despicable man who led a vile regime, but the fact that after just a few weeks of Communist rule most Koreans decided that he represented the lesser of two evils tells its own story.

Met. Rejects Protect Cult.

It appears that the City of London Police, a London police force for those who can't get into the Metropolitan Police, appear to see themselves as enforcers for the cult of Scientology:

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word "cult" to describe the Church of Scientology.

The unnamed youth was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion.

Officers confiscated a placard with the word "cult" on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

A date has not yet been set for him to appear in court.

The force appears to have a rather cosy relationship with the church, no doubt this is just because they are high level Operating Thetans who are being smeared by SPs:

The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology.

The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening
of its headquarters in 2006.

Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents, although he is not a member of the group.

Normally a religious group has to have it's followers blow people up in order to win that kind of ringing endorsement by senior police officers.

All this of course comes less than a week after the West Midlands Police had to make a groveling apology to Channel 4 for trying to harass them over the 'Undercover Mosque' programme. The charges will inevitably be dropped at some point, but as Ron Hubbard put it "The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage, rather than to win – if possible, of course, ruin [the target] utterly", in this particular case simply getting charges brought against a teenager with limited financial means can be highly effective in stifling criticism.

Cabbage Theology

Many centuries ago their were a series of bitterly fought theological battles about the precise nature of Jesus and whether he was of the same divine substance as God or whether he was human.

In this secular age we have bitterly fought battles of the nature of cabbage and whether it is of the same garden substance as grass cuttings or whether it becomes something different when in enters a kitchen:

Retired milkman Barry Freezer made the mistake of dumping cabbage stalks in his bin and incurred the wrath of the council's waste collection supremos.

He says they treated him like a criminal and refused to collect his garden waste, claiming the cabbage trimmings were kitchen rubbish.

No doubt some trinitarian solution will be found in which a cabbage has three simultaneous natures as a garden product, food and a council waste collection supremo.

Hybrids, Why Not?

In many parts of the world mixing human and animal DNA is something that rustic folk do in private behind closed barn doors. However this ancient practice is more controversial when done in a laboratory by scientists.

The Prime Minister has come out in favour of allowing human-animal hybrid embryos to be created, but apart from that I can't see any reason to oppose it. As far as I'm concerned a two week old embryo is simply a cluster of cells and not a distinct being is any sense and any moral dilemmas only appear once it develops a neural system.

Whilst human animal hybrids can be made to sound more dramatic than they are, the only coherent grounds for objecting to them are that one believes that life is sacred from conception onwards, and that is indeed the belief of organisations like the Catholic church. For other opponents it really doesn't make a lot of sense to allow foetuses to be aborted as late as 24 weeks whilst simultaneously throwing up one's hands in horror at the prospect of a two week old embryo being experimented on before being disposed of.

The creation of hybrid embryos has the potential to allow medical advances that would save many lives in the future and causes no suffering to anyone else.

Making Guests Feel At Home.

South Africans it seems like to make their visitors feel at home, which isn't so good when their home is Zimbabwe:

The violence in Alexandra started on Sunday evening when an enraged mob marched to a hostel in London Road, targeting foreigners mainly from Zimbabwe whom they accuse of stealing precious jobs and contributing to worsening crime rates.

The crowd beat the immigrants, forced others from their rooms and shot dead two men – one a South African who refused to take part in the attack.

I've heard about the supposed hostility between black South Africans and Zimbabweans before but had thought that it was to do with the South African sympathy for Robert Mugabe. Given South Africa's responsibility for sustaining Mugabe in power, and thus fueling the Zimbabwe exodus, the attention of the rioters should really be directed against themselves. Whilst recent actions such as the refusal by Durban dockers to unload Zanu weapons is welcome, it hardly makes up for the behaviour of the Rainbow Nation's political elite, who memorably gave Robert Mugabe a standing ovation at the infamous 2001 anti racism conference.

{Link via UK Commentators}

An Own Goal In The Class War.

As is now quite well known Labour a resorting to some very ugly class war rhetoric in the Crewe and Nantwich by election. One of the things they've decided to highlight is the fact that the Conservative candidate is driving around in a Bentley.

As a Labour PPC, Lucy Powell writes on the Guardian politics blog:

The view, in Crewe at least, seems to be that local people want a local champion, someone who will stand up for them in parliament, who is in touch with their concerns and will deliver for them. In this Labour town, they're not convinced that the Tory candidate will do this. (Driving around campaigning in Bentleys isn't helping, although the only Tory campaigner I saw was in a classic MG).

Aside from the fact that Labour's 'local champion' is from Wales and her only connection with the constituency is that her mother previously held the seat, the Bentley swipe is spectacularly ill judged as the subsequent comments make clear:

Are you sure you were in Crewe, the home of Bentley Motors? Bentley, and its local suppliers, are a major employer in the town

And:

Funniest post I've read for days.

"driving around campaigning in Bentleys isn't helping"

You think?

Company Profile

Bentley Motors Ltd

Company Address Pyms Lane,
Crewe,
Cheshire,
CW1 3PL

As well as:

Err, I am a Crewe voter and I do so happen to be employed at the Pyms Lane Bentley factory.

Incompetent as well as nasty.