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It is official: food is the new enemy of the international left.
While the crashers were doing their stuff on the neatly-manicured lawns of Geneva, dark plots were being hatched inside the gleaming towers:
All 192 countries in the World Health Organisation have tentatively agreed to an unprecedented policy on diet and health to tackle global obesity.
Did that include the Ethiopeans?
The voluntary plan was hammered out at talks in Geneva in the face of stiff opposition from lobbies such as the sugar-producing nations.
We are privileged indeed to witness the birth of a brand, new imaginary straw-man. Ladies and gentlemen, making its debut on the world stage, but soon to making regular appearances in the columns of every angry, left-wing polemicist in every media venue on earth, please give a warm welcome to….. “the Sugar Lobby” (boo, hiss). Stand right here in the spotlight, Sugar Lobby, and take your place among right-wingers, big tobacco, industrialists, zionists, gun manufacturers, motorists and George Bush.
Nearly one in six people worldwide is now considered overweight.
Amazing is it not? Seems like only five minutes ago that the battlecry of the social-working class was “feed the starving”. Now, in the blink of an eye, they have changed it to “starve the fed”. Astonishing stuff!
The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says this is the first ever attempt to regulate the world’s eating habits.
And we all know that it will not be the last.
Dr Kaare Norum, a Norwegian obesity expert who advised the WHO on the development of the plan, said the agreement was a victory for public health.
DR. NORUM: “I have been studying obese people for many, many years and the incontrovertible data I have collected as a result leads me to conclude that these people are very fat”.
WHO: “You are obviously an expert. Come join our committee”.
Honestly, the whole article sounds as if it has been lifted from an old issue of Pravda. Mind you, it comes courtesy of the Beeb.
So be warned you choca-holics and doughnut-dunkers: your stodgy, sticky delights are on the hit list. Lock them away in secret bunkers while you still can.
If something sounds too good to be true then it is most likely untrue but if something sounds too bad to be true you can probably take it to the bank.
If there is anything axiomatic about that proposition then perhaps I should claim proprietory rights on it and call it ‘Carr’s Law’ or something. I am not sure how much use this law will prove to be on a practical day-to-day basis but it may oblige as a useful yardstick against which to measure my natural cynicism about opinion polls, surveys and related statistical exercises.
For example, take this one, published last month:
David Blunkett has pledged to push ahead with ID card legislation after an opinion poll said most people would be happy to carry one.
The MORI survey was commissioned by an IT consultancy which has worked on projects with the government.
It revealed 80% of those questioned backed a national ID card scheme, echoing findings from previous polls.
And published yesterday:
Most people would support closing a legal loophole that allows parents to smack their children, says a survey.
A total of 71% of people would favour such a ban, according to a survey commissioned by the Children are Unbeatable! Alliance.
And published today:
A majority of British adults favour a total ban on smoking in public places, a survey suggests.
A poll of more than 1,500 people by market analysts Mintel found 52% support for a ban, including two-thirds of non-smokers.
Despite my ingrained reluctance to pay these wretched surveys even a jot of heed, I do accept that a sufficient number of such polling exercises (if conducted scientifically and honestly) can, correctly identify a trend if not quite reveal great truths. → Continue reading: All those in favour say “aye”
If something sounds too good to be true then it is most likely untrue but if something sounds too bad to be true you can probably take it to the bank.
If there is anything axiomatic about that proposition then perhaps I should claim proprietory rights on it and call it ‘Carr’s Law’ or something. I am not sure how much use this law will prove to be on a practical day-to-day basis but it may oblige as a useful yardstick against which to measure my natural cynicism about opinion polls, surveys and related statistical exercises.
For example, take this one, published last month:
David Blunkett has pledged to push ahead with ID card legislation after an opinion poll said most people would be happy to carry one.
The MORI survey was commissioned by an IT consultancy which has worked on projects with the government.
It revealed 80% of those questioned backed a national ID card scheme, echoing findings from previous polls.
And published yesterday:
Most people would support closing a legal loophole that allows parents to smack their children, says a survey.
A total of 71% of people would favour such a ban, according to a survey commissioned by the Children are Unbeatable! Alliance.
And published today:
A majority of British adults favour a total ban on smoking in public places, a survey suggests.
A poll of more than 1,500 people by market analysts Mintel found 52% support for a ban, including two-thirds of non-smokers.
Despite my ingrained reluctance to pay these wretched surveys even a jot of heed, I do accept that a sufficient number of such polling exercises (if conducted scientifically and honestly) can, correctly identify a trend if not quite reveal great truths. → Continue reading: All those in favour say “aye”
The irony is so thick that you could not chop through it with an axe.
Amid all the hand-wringing and condemnations over incidents which may or may not have taken place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, there does not appear to be even a bat-squeak of high moral tone over rituals of abuse and humiliation that are most definitely occuring in British schools: [note: link may not be available to non-UK readers.]
DOGS are visiting at least 100 secondary schools in England and Wales to search pupils for drugs, particularly cannabis. In some areas a private security firm is providing dogs and handlers to check children.
Sniffer dogs are viewed by some head teachers and governors as a softer option than random drug tests.
Well, they are also a softer option than the ducking stool but that does not justify their deployment. Nor are such degrading exercises made any more palatable by spoonfuls of sugar:
Annette Croft, the head teacher, said that there had been unease among some pupils when they were lined up to be sniffed by the dogs. She told Druglink magazine that the exercise was “a very mellow, humane and civilised response to the threat of drugs”.
Priceless! How about a mellow, humane and civilised response to the threat of drug warriors and their unquestioning footsoldiers. Really, is there any order these people would not obey?
Parents were asked to sign a letter of consent to the searches, which is usual in most schools where dogs are used. Any pupils who do not consent are searched by hand.
See, participation is voluntary so that is all okay then.
Only four pupils were picked out, including one who provided information about cannabis smoking on the school bus.
Confess and you will be spared, my child.
I am sincerely at a loss to comprehend the volcanic eruption of outrage and revulsion over the treatment of Iraqi prisoners when schoolchildren in this country are subjected to ritual abuse and humiliation as a matter of policy.
I expect there will be no shortage of angry respondents to point out that there is no comparison. They are right. The Iraqi prisoners were, at least, adults and while that does not excuse or justify brutal treatment, one should similarly spare a thought for just how intimidating it must be for children to be lined up by burly security men and set upon by dogs.
No, they are not being hooded, chained, beaten or kicked in the nether regions by belligerent squaddies but I get the feeling that the overlords of the drug war would gleefully institute such measures and, if they did, that the otherwise squeamish and human-rights obsessed British press would report on their progress with equanimity and no small degree of satisfaction.
Shock treatment, you see. It’s for their own good.
There is good news for the differently-conscienced and the caringly-caffeinated. They no longer have to exorcise their middle-class guilt by travelling overland to India or teaching English to ragamuffins in the shanty towns of Kinshasa.
Absolution is soon to be found right here in Central London:
The UK’s first fair trade coffee shops are set to open later this year, courtesy of Oxfam. And to give customers a flavour of what to expect, it opened one for a day in central London.
As if anybody does not know what to expect!
The food is fair trade wherever possible, so fruit, cereal bars and chocolate are “ethical” but pastries are not.
These diabolical right-wing, warmongering neo-pastries with their blundering, inept foreign policies are inflaming the ‘Arab street’ and bringing the world to the brink of war. It’s all about creeeeeeeeaaaamm!
“The cafes are about people enjoying classy coffee in a classy place. If they want to find out about the coffee and the issues they can make that discovery. It’s not about saying ‘Come and feel worthy’ but ‘come and have a super time’. The values are extra.”
Only if munching your way through an inedible cereal bar in the company of a bunch of po-faced do-gooders is your idea of a super time.
There are photographs on the walls showing the people who matter most in the venture – the farmers from Honduras, Ethiopia and Indonesia.
Collectively, they share 25% of the profits, community projects in those areas get another 25% and Oxfam has a 50% share.
In other words, some 75% ends up back in the pockets of the professional welfare classes. This is not ‘fair trade’, its a money-laundering scheme.
Two cups of hot, steaming piety, please!
In future, Judges are going to have to be less judgmental:
Judges have been issued with guidelines to encourage political correctness in court. Advice sent to all judges and magistrates in England and Wales, tackles misleading social stereotypes that have led to a high-profile judicial gaffes.
Note of explanation: ‘gaffe’ is a term applied to instances of public figures accidentally letting the truth slip out.
Judges are told the term “coloured” should never be used, to avoid using the description “oriental” and to take care that “British” is not used as shorthand for white, English or Christian. They are also given a definition of asylum-seeker, and are reminded that women “remain disadvantaged” in society. “The disadvantages women can suffer range from inadequate recognition of their contribution to the home or society to an underestimation of the problems women face as a result of gender bias,” the guidance says.
Somebody should really slap a Preservation Order on these ‘guidelines’. They have a unique, period 1970’s charm all of their own.
The term “asylum-seeker” is associated with people without a genuine claim to be refugees, and is almost pejorative, the advice said.
Hilarious! We used to use the word ‘immigrants’ until the PC brigade got it banned for being offensive. ‘Asylum-seeker’ was the neutral replacement term. This country is institutionally anti-euphamist.
And judges are advised not to overlook the use of gender-based, racist or “homophobic” stereotyping as an “evidential short cut”. They are also warned against using words that imply an “evaluation” of the sexes, however subtle: for instance, “man and wife”, “girl” (unless speaking of a child) and “businessmen”.
The judiciary is to undergo regular training sessions.
Where they will learn that they are bourgeois counter-revolutionaries and lackeys of the capitalist running dogs.
Here is a list of ‘verboten’ terms:
Coloured: An offensive term that should never be used
Oriental: The term should be avoided because it is imprecise and may be considered racist or offensive
British: Care should be taken to use the term “British” in an inclusive sense, to include all citizens. Exclusionary use of the term as a synonym for white, English, or Christian is unacceptable
Postman: Use postal worker instead
Right on! It is about time that anti-postworkerism was confronted and smashed.
Are you married?: Intrusive and irrelevant
Yes, especially in divorce proceedings.
Mentally handicap: Judges should use instead “learning disabilities” and “people with disabilities”.
Feel free to chip in with further useful suggestions.
Conservative MP (and onetime leadership contender) Michael Portillo has a column in the UK Times [note: link may not be available to non-UK readers] in which he manages to illustrate everything that is so frustratingly wrong with British Conservatives.
This is not to say that his opinions are entirely unworthy. In fact, he hits several nails very squarely on the head:
Public esteem for business is alarmingly low. It is striking how much comment in the media is negative. In Britain those who most influence public opinion, the so-called commentariat, are in the main not involved in wealth creation. They are journalists, lobbyists, academics, religious leaders, civil servants and public service employees. They are generally given to scepticism or cynicism.
They are generally given to far more visceral sentiments but the point is still meritorious. However, it all starts going downhill from there.
I am a fervent advocate of free enterprise. Humankind has invented no better system for the generalised increase of prosperity. I believe that the creation of wealth is virtuous. People who work in business can and should feel that their efforts have a moral purpose. Without the profit motive we would not generate the resources that make it possible for government to build schools and hospitals and pay benefits to those who are poor or who cannot work.
Mr Portillo’s idea of ‘advocacy’ is to make a moral case for free enterprise based on nothing except a shameless pandering to the parasitical instincts of the public sector. Vote for capitalism, you will get a fatter cow to milk.
But these are not easy times for enthusiasts of capitalism. The cynics have received plentiful ammunition. We have witnessed the collapse of Enron, the American energy conglomerate, into a cesspool of deceit and trickery with its shareholders defrauded. Its auditors, Arthur Andersen, had one of the finest names in the business. The firm was associated with the highest ethical standards, a reputation built up over a century. After such rottenness was revealed within a venerated institution, it is difficult to be confident of anything.
Well, if that is ‘fervent’ I would hate to see ‘phlegmatic’. That sounds like a BBC editorial, written by the kind of people who believe that fraudulent behaviour is an inevitable and damning characteristic of free trade. Mr. Portillo seems to agree. → Continue reading: Limp
He is back and this time he is pissed off!!
Former Labour MP and TV presenter Roberty Kilroy-Silk has emerged from his brief period of public exile to announce that he intends to stand as a candidate for the UK Independence Party in the forthcoming European Parliament elections.
The UKIP leadership will almost certainly regard this as something of coup and not without justification. They have had a dreadfully hard time getting any public traction for their campaign to get Britain out of the EU altogether and celebrity commitments of this nature can (if not turn the tide) at least help to raise profile.
But what will the Europhile side make of this? Hay, is the answer. Indeed, the harvesting is already underway:
Robert Kilroy-Silk, the politician turned TV presenter who lost his daytime show for insulting the Arab nations, has now joined a group of people who think that continental Europe is ruled by “barbarians”.
The former Labour MP, whose opinions have become more right-wing as he has grown older, wants Britain to withdraw from the EU altogether, and to impose heavy restrictions on immigration.
The entire case of the Europhile lobby consists of the wicked calumny that anti-EU campaginers are merely a motley bunch of rabid, red-necked bigots and foaming-at-the-mouth nazi-types who just do not like ‘foreigners’. It is the only weapon in their armoury and they wield it with alacrity.
Given Mr. Kilroy-Silk’s recent, well-publicised and rather uncharitable outbursts (the nature of which were sufficient, in the current ethical climate, to brand him as an incorrigable racist) his candidacy is going to provide the Europhiles with a big dose of ‘see-we-told-you-so’ corroboration for their libels. I expect that they will milk this unfortunate and inaccurate conflation for all it is worth.
I hope that good fortune smiles on UKIP and Mr Kilroy-Silk’s campaign for electoral success but I do fear that his candidacy will prove to be a propoganda victory for the other side.
Lest anyone forget about the “broken-watch principle” (i.e. even a broken watch is still right twice a day), a reminder is served up courtesy of this excellent and unsettling article by Nick Cohen in the Guardian:
Politicians might be despised, but it is a fair guess that if a home secretary or prime minister proposed repealing the Human Rights Act or tearing up habeas corpus a majority of the population would clap their hands and cheer him on. A paradox of our time is that while ministers are everywhere vilified as scheming liars, and bureaucrats as sinister incompetents, large sections of the supposedly cynical and wised-up electorate are eager to allow them to behave like major-generals.
Sadly true. Mr Cohen even goes on to quote H.L. Mencken:
‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary,’ said H.L. Mencken. But in modern Britain it’s hard to know who is the leader and who is the led. It’s easy enough to blame elite politicians, desperate to win the approval of apathetic voters, and elite media managers, desperate to hang on to their shares of declining audiences. But there’s also no doubt that politicians are buffeted by an angry and fearful public which isn’t overly concerned if the punitive measures they demand tear up civil liberties or, indeed, work.
For such great wrongs are liberties which this country fought Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler to defend abandoned without a squeak.
Mr Cohen’s doleful analysis chimes with my own observations and experiences of life in contemporary Britain and because I often come to the same melancholy conclusions I am sometimes accused of ‘revelling’ in pessimism. But this is not true. It is rather that I am unwilling to ignore the evidence of my own eyes and ears.
For those same reasons, I find myself growing increasingly impatient with analyses of our current woes in terms of historical precendents (the 1930’s, the 1950’s and the 1970’s appear to be the most referred to). If Nick Cohen is right (and the evidence points towards his being right) then comparisons with previous eras are specious. We are facing a whole new situation here.
Despite some of the strictest anti-gun laws anywhere in the world and despite the abject failure of those laws to make this country a safer or better place in which to live, the anti-gun hysteria shows no signs of abating:
The Government will attempt to tackle Britain’s gun culture with plans to be unveiled this week for an overhaul of outdated firearms laws.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will publish a consultation document which is expected to lead to tougher restrictions on the sale and manufacture of replica firearms as well as new age limits on gun ownership, especially for airguns, starter pistols and shotguns.
The consultation follows lobbying by the police and anti-gun campaigners who say Britain’s gun laws are confused, out of date and in desperate need of reform.
Of particular concern are replica firearms which are popular with gun collectors and can be bought legally but are being converted by criminals into lethal weapons to fire live ammunition.
By ‘reform’ they mean ever-greater restrictions leading inexorably to prohibition. In due course, toy guns, water pistols, potato guns and anyone with the surname ‘Gunn’ will be added to this list.
The whole subject of firearms has gone way beyond any arguments about citizen’s rights to self-defence or law and order or communal safety. Guns are now just bad ju-ju; the modern equivalent of the ‘evil-eye’ or some other medieval, peasant superstition the mere sight or mention of which is sufficient to induce an impulsive and irrational terror.
Bad ideas can be challenged with good ideas but superstitions are far more difficult to combat. For that, we need a whole new ‘Age of Reason’.
What is the difference between a headline and a story?
Well, in this case, a whole world of difference. The headline to this item on the BBC (where else?) spells out in big, bold type:
Calls for tax rise to help children
Ahhhhhh…children. Itty-bitty, helpless, doe-eyed, little moppets. Who can refuse a plea to help the little children? What kind of greedy, stone-hearted monster would vote against the opportunity to bring a ray of sunshine to their adorable, chubby faces?
Spare yourself the struggle with your conscience for only in text of the story does the actual identity of the proposed beneficiaries become clear:
Scotland’s new children’s commissioner has called for a penny on income tax to pay for improvements to child protection agencies, which she claims are badly overstretched.
So the extra tax money is not for children at all but to create more public sector jobs for functionaries.
The only things that are ‘overstretched’ are the public heart-strings they keep tugging on.
There must be a comedy sketch in this:
West Yorkshire Police were guilty of sex discrimination in refusing to recruit a male-to-female transsexual, law lords have ruled.
The five law lords ruled unanimously that the woman, Miss A, was unlawfully discriminated against in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act.
They upheld a decision by the Court of Appeal last November.
West Yorkshire Police had argued that Miss A would not be able to carry out certain duties, such as body searches.
Lord Bingham said that, under European law, transsexuals were entitled to the same protection against discrimination as any other individual and to be recognised as belonging to their ‘acquired gender’.
Not to mention endless jokes about truncheons.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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