Comic Relief? Not funny!

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Comic relief? Top black academic argues western approach is not working for Africa
Charities are 'small beer' compared to what Dambisa Moyo perceives to be Africa's real problem: the billions of pounds  of aid poured into the continent by Western governments.

Consider the figures. In the past 50 years, the West has pumped around £35 trillion into Africa. But far from improving the lives of ordinary Africans, the result of state administered charity on such a colossal scale has, argues Moyo, been 'an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster'.

The effects are easy to see, yet always ignored. Over the past 30 years, the economies of the most aid dependent countries have shrunk by 0.2 per cent per annum.

Yes, in the UK we have been in recession for six months or so now, but countries like Malawi and Burkina Faso have been in recession for three decades. How is this disaster related to thoughtless Western aid?   Directly...

Evil Catholics

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Rapist stepfather can still attend Mass.  Mother and doctor excommunicated
The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not survive carrying the foetuses to term.

“God’s law is above any human law. So when a human law … is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” Cardoso had said.

He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed “a heinous crime … the abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious”.
I’m a lapsed Catholic and I have no hesitation in condemning the Pope and his Bishops as utterly evil.
Can’t really expect them to get to excercised about rape, after all, it’s been the favoured pastime of hundreds of priests worldwide (although they do tend to prefer young boys).

Blair: epic criminal

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Pilger: War Comes Home to Britain
Freedoms are being lost in Britain because of the rapid growth of the “national security state.” This form of militarism was imported from the United States by New Labour. Totalitarian in essence, it relies upon fear mongering to entrench the executive with venal legal mechanisms that progressively diminish democracy and justice.

“Security” is all, as is propaganda promoting rapacious colonial wars, even as honest mistakes. Take away this propaganda, and the wars are exposed for what they are, and fear evaporates. Take away the obeisance of many in Britain’s liberal elite to American power and you demote a profound colonial and crusader mentality that covers for epic criminals like Blair. Prosecute these criminals and change the system that breeds them and you have freedom.


Will Self on the whore of Babylon

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Flagellating Sir Fred won't save Gordon Brown
It makes my eyes bleed to read some of the self-serving drivel the commentariat is dishing up at the moment. They drool it over the politicians - they serve it up to the bankers, but by golly they won't suck it down themselves. While it's true that few could have been expected to understand exactly where and when the bubble was going to pop, it beggars belief that quite so many allegedly intelligent people were unable to see that it was a bubble at all.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised; after all, ever since British politicians took to making pilgrimages in order to be anointed by that great Yahweh, Rupert Murdoch, the mainstream media in this country have been setting an agenda based securely on maximising profit.

In Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye the reclusive newspaper magnate Harland Potter says to Philip Marlowe: 'A newspaper is an advertising vehicle predicated on its circulation, nothing more and nothing less.' I pity all those readers, viewers and listeners who never grasped that most editorial and comment had no more significance than a discount voucher - and considerably less utility.


Pro-Israel campaign

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What to do about orchestrated email campaigns
Based on his analysis of emails, Sabbagh concludes that the BMJ was the target of an orchestrated campaign to silence criticism of Israel. And that is certainly how it felt. As well as almost 1000 emails to the editor, the BMJ’s website received hundreds of electronic responses to the article itself as well as feedback generally critical of the journal’s decision to publish it. The feedback messages began in earnest three days after publication and then streamed in, almost in alphabetical order of the senders’ names. Their wording was uncannily similar, with some authors seemingly ignorant of the article they were criticising—well described features of orchestrated campaigns.4 5 Some took us to task for covering the difficulties faced by diabetic Palestinians in Gaza; this issue had been raised not by the BMJ but by Diabetes Voice, which has no connection to the BMJ.6 We had been used to unfamiliar voices from unfamiliar places crowding in to debates on the Middle East before, but never on this scale.


Snapping point

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Charlie Brooker: To politicians, we're little more than meaningless blobs on a monitor
My personal snapping point was reached last week, at the precise moment Jack Straw announced the government was vetoing the Information Tribunal's order for the release of cabinet minutes relating to that whole invasion-of-Iraq thing. Come on, you remember Iraq: that little foreign policy blip millions of us protested against to absolutely zero avail, because Straw and his pals figured they knew best, even though it turned out they didn't and - oops! - hundreds of thousands of lives were lost as a result. Remember the footage of that screaming little boy with his limbs blown off? Maybe not. Maybe you felt a shiver of guilt when you saw that; guilt that you hadn't personally done enough to prevent it; should've shouted louder, marched further. Or maybe it stunned you into numbness. Because what was the point in protesting any more? These people do what they want.