Don't vote for warmongers

Here's a great initiative from across the pond, which I wholeheartedly endorse. It's time to get a similar petition organised in Britain.
http://www.votersforpeace.us/signUp.jsp?key=1134

Multinationals: Hands off our water

I have long argued that there should be much greater transparency when it comes to journalists writing comment pieces for the national press. The reader has a right to know what financial interest, if any, the writer has in the area under discussion. Today's Daily Telegraph contains a piece by Kendra Okonski, arguing that water privatisation hasn't gone far enough.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/06/05/do0502.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/06/05/ixopinion
The state should stop telling the private water companies what to do, and allow them to charge the market rate for their water. 'Customers should pay for every drop' Okonski opines- regardless of course of their ability to pay. At the foot of the piece the Telegraph mentions that Okonski is 'Envirnomental Director of International Policy Network' . Sound pretty bland doesn't it? I wonder how many Daily Telegraph readers will go the trouble of finding out who funds the IPN? If they knew, they would take Ms Okonksi's expressed concern for 'the environment' with a huge barrow-load full of salt.
Here's the lowdown on Okonski and the IPN from Sourcewatch.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kendra_Okonski

And here's our great British water expert speaking to the American Enterprise Institute (!) in March 2006:

Kendra Okonski: Yeah, I’ll answer that one too. The U.K. has a privatized water system. I have to admit I don’t know much about the details of how it was done.

Who needs facts when you're Niall Ferguson?

Never be fooled into thinking that because someone holds the title 'Professor'- he or she will be a font of wisdom, knowledge and insight. Just think of Timothy Garton-Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University, who recently wrote that Slobodan Milosevic was the leader of Yugoslavia when Slovenia declared independence in 1991!. Niall Ferguson is another academic who doesn't let little things like facts get in the way of a good argument. Here's an extract from his Sunday Telegraph piece today. You'd think from reading it that Iran has already stated its ambition to develop nuclear weapons. It hasn't. Neither has it made any claim that nuclear missiles are its 'right'; on the contrary, the Supreme Leader of Iran has issued a fatwah prohibiting their development. Still, never mind. Who needs to bother with little things like facts when you're a highly-paid Professor at Harvard and cheerleader for the most powerful Empire the world has ever seen?

'The new American diplomacy will be effective only if the Iranians are left in no doubt: they cannot have nuclear missiles. They are not a "right", as they like to claim, but a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran is a signatory, and a threat to peace. They can renounce them in return for some fat, juicy carrots, or in response to some irksome sticks. But if they press on regardless, they will invite a Clausewitzian response.
The best line in X-Men: The Last Stand is uttered by Sir Ian McKellen, as Magneto. "They wish to cure us," he thunders, "but I say, we are the cure." Many people around the world have wanted to cure the Bush administration of its belief in armed force as a legitimate instrument of policy. But if Iran spurns Condi's carrots and sticks, then the old, pre-mutant Bush will indeed be the only cure.'

As an antidote to Ferguson's obnoxious pro-war propaganda, here's a superb piece from Jonathan Steele on Iran from Friday's Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1788481,00.html

A 'Once in a Lifetime Bet' (If You Are a Prat)

Here's Stephen Pollard on a 'once in a lifetime bet' in today's Derby.
http://www.stephenpollard.net/002596.html
Result: both Visindar and Championship Point finished unplaced.
The funniest thing about this whole episode is this comment from one of Pollard's sycophantic readers, who put £100 on Visindar because of Pollard's confidence:
You better be as right about this as you are about political things.
What political things would they be, I wonder?
His prediction that Alan Johnson would replace Charles Clarke as Home Secretary? http://www.stephenpollard.net/002570.html
His strong support for the Iraq war? http://www.stephenpollard.net/000632.html

Not so Sweet, Georgia Brown......

You expect to read Cold War propaganda in the Weekly Standard. But it's extremely disappointing to read it in the travel pages of The Guardian.
The beautiful Lake Balaton area of Hungary, Georgia Brown informs us, was formerly 'forbidden to British visitors' .
My wife Zsuzsanna, who is Hungarian, is rather bemused. During 'goulash' communism, Hungary positively encouraged Western European tourists, including those from Britain (as it still does today). One of my father's work colleagues was a regular visitor to Balaton in the communist era- perhaps he was just imagining it?
Wouldn't it be nice, just for once, to read a travel piece about an ex-communist nation that did not feel obliged to tell porkies about the previous system. Or is that simply too much to ask for?
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/countries/story/0,,1786988,00.html

The EU's Double Standards in the Balkans

The EU Rules for Referenda in the Balkans: If you want to leave Serbia, fine, if you might want to join up with her, not allowed!
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?id=16047

Norway and Switzerland don't 'belong' in Europe?

Timothy Garton-Ash drools at the prospect of another member of his beloved E.U. in the Guardian today. He writes:

The citizens of Montenegro and Serbia know that they have to make their own way to prosperity, democracy and the rule of law. Only then can they advance, via the OSCE, the Council of Europe, Uefa, Miss Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest and Nato, to today's ultimate seal of European belonging: EU membership.

Those poor old Norwegians and Swiss must be feeling really left out.