New Home For Sale ?

AFP

LONDON (AFP) — The Maldives' newly-elected president said in an interview Monday that his government will begin saving to buy a new homeland in case global warming causes the country to disappear into the sea.

Beloved by tourists for their white sandy beaches, palm trees and clear waters, the 1,192 coral islands that make up the Indian Ocean country risk devastation by rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed, who won the Maldives' first democratic presidential election last month, told The Guardian his government will start putting aside part of its billion-dollar annual tourism income in case the worst happens.

"We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It's an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome," he told the newspaper.

He added: "We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades."

Nasheed said he had already broached the subject with a number of countries and found them to be "receptive". India and Sri Lanka are targets because they had similar cultures and climates, while vast Australia was also an option.

He told the newspaper he intended to create a "sovereign wealth fund" from the money generated by tourism, much like Arab states had with oil revenues. "Kuwait might invest in companies -- we will invest in land," he said.

Outgoing president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Asia's longest-serving leader, launched a book in April to highlight the threat to the Maldives posed by global warming.

He said at the time that they could only adapt to the problem by relocating citizens to safer islands. The alternative, building protective walls on the 193 inhabited islands, was too expensive.

The issue is - will anyone sell a chunk of their territory with full sovereignty ? What would Sri Lanka think, say, if then their Maldive Republic then did a land-for-assistance deal with the Tamil Tigers ? Or created an army and moved it to the border ? Or bought all their goods and services from Tamil Nadu, or denied their airspace to Sri Lankan tourist overflights ?

Only asking. The idea of recreating the old country elsewhere might appeal to some Brits as well as some Maldivans. Trouble is, where's habitable land to be had these days ?

Russia is one answer, or Ukraine/Belorus. Empty land, shortage of people, good soil. But I don't think the British Volga Republic is a terribly good idea, any more than Vladimir Putin is likely to. In the Tsar's day thousands of Germans moved there to farm, and a very good fist they made of it too. Come the 1917 revolution, the Volga German Autonomous Republic was created. And it was all downhill from there. The empty lands round Penza might be related to the fact that the last lot of foreign famers ended up in Siberia.

Candles In The Wind ?

This is going to be one of those weekends where I ask the commentariat for help.

I hear on the news today that the EU are imposing import duties on Chinese candles, because they're selling to the EU at 'below cost price'.

"Brussels launched a probe after candlemakers from Germany, the Netherlands and other countries complained that they were being hurt by illegal pricing practised by Chinese rivals and accused them of getting unfair export aid"

Hmm. So we'll help "Germany, the Netherlands and other countries ". When I lived in South London in the 80s I used to be cheered by seeing a classic Victorian factory near the Battersea Heliport which announced "Price's Patent Candles".

Oh dear.

Up until the 1970's Price's also had an international reputation for designing and manufacturing candle-making machinery; this ceased in 1980 and the engineering workshop space was vacated. Increasing production costs, the logistics of transporting raw materials into and goods out of a central London location and the increase in value of what is now a prime riverside location led the company to reconsider its position. In 1998 it relocated its UK candle manufacture to Bicester in Oxfordshire, and in 2001 Price’s Head Office moved to Bedford to join the Distribution Centre. On the original site, a Price’s retail shop remains, sharing the Wilsons' original Battersea site with elegant riverside apartment blocks and a heliport.

I see that the factory became a building site (and it actually incorporated some bits of a 15th century moated house) and that Price's went bust, the Bicester site closed and the company was bought - well, the brand name was bought - by an Italian company who manufacture in Italy.



But that's not what I wanted to ask about. How does this 'dumping' work ? I presume the manufacturers aren't going to sell below cost price - and they wouldn't last long if they did.

How then is their export subsidised ? Do the Chinese Government pay a candle export subsidy or give the candle firms grants ? Or are the EU telling porkies again ? Do they just want to protect the candle industry for their own reasons ?

After all, in the new energy world, candles could be a strategic resource again. With no EU candle industry and North Sea oil running out, what if the Chinese blow out the candles just as the Russians turn off the gas ?


UPDATE - via anonymous in the comments, dirty candle-related EU deeds and an insider's view of Trade Commissar Mandelson :

Warming to the subject, he explained that Mandelson had, in the past, made so many errors in promoting free trade that he had no choice now but to introduce protectionist measures.

He said: “His wish is to remove barriers for trade, but unilaterally. Only to remove barriers at any cost. And in the real world this is, of course, not possible . . . He showed his sometimes radical, extreme positions so that member states that did not share his views were really scared and this you can’t do.”

He also poked fun at Mandelson: “He has a vision — without to be nasty — to be always on the front of the Financial Times. This is a problem with a visionaire. Ha? Someone who has vision, they don’t listen.”

More on Afghanistan

Further to my post yesterday, a couple of points.

Firstly that creating a modern society by brute force certainly didn't work first time round, if wikipedia is at all accurate. Apparently :

Once in power, the PDPA implemented a socialist agenda. It moved to replacing traditional and islamic sharia laws with secular ones. Men were now not obliged to wear beards, women to wear a burqa, and mosques were placed off limits. It carried out an ambitious land reform, waiving farmers' debts countrywide and abolishing usury - intended to release the poorer farmers from debt bondage.

At the time, infant mortality was 269 per thousand, average life expectancy just 35 years and about 90% of the population were illiterate. Free emergency medical care was introduced. A mass literacy campaign was begun, 5000 unemployed university graduates being recruited as teachers. By the end of 1979, 600 new schools had been built, many of them in rural areas, and up to 500,000 adult Afghans were attending basic literacy classes (another 500,000 had enrolled but dropped out). Working hours were reduced, low-paid workers were given higher wages and trade unions were legalised for the first time in Afghanistan's history.

In late 1978, Nur Mohammad Taraki, President of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, promulgated Decree #7 which aimed at a transformation of the marriage institution by attacking its traditional monetary basis and promoting equality between men and women.

The government also made a number of other decrees on women’s rights, banning forced marriages, giving state recognition of women’s right to vote, and introducing women to political life. Women took leadership positions in the regime and fought social conservatives and islamic extremists on various issues. A prominent example was Anahita Ratebzad, who was a major Marxist leader and a member of the Revolutionary Council. Ratebzad wrote the famous New Kabul Times editorial (May 28, 1978) which declared: “Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country .... Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention.”

A programme to warm any Guardianista's heart, and even Laban's pretty keen on a lot of it. Not sure what that 'mosques off limits' bit meant though. How did they go about overcoming political opposition ? Oh. I see. Even unity might think twice about this - wouldn't he ?

The destruction of Afghanistan's former ruling elite had begun immediately after the seizure of power. Execution (Parcham leaders later claimed at least 11,000 during the Taraki/Amin period), flight into exile, and later the devastation of Kabul itself would literally remove the great majority of the some 100,000 who had come to form Afghanistan's elite and middle class. Their loss almost completely broke the continuity of Afghanistan's leadership, political institutions and their social foundation...

The Khalq leadership proved incapable of filling this vacuum. Its brutal and clumsy attempts to introduce radical changes in control over agricultural land holding and credit, rural social relations, marriage and family arrangements, and education led to scattered protests and uprisings among all major communities in the Afghan countryside. Taraki and Amin left a legacy of turmoil and resentment which gravely compromised later Marxist attempts to win popular acceptance.

The human rights violations of the Khalq extended beyond the educated elite. Between April 1978 and the Soviet invasion of December 1979, Afghan Communists executed an estimated 27,000 political prisoners at Pul-i-Charki prison six miles east of Kabul. Many of the victims were village mullahs and headmen who were obstructing the modernization and secularization of the intensely religious Afghan countryside. The Khalq leadership introduced to Afghanistan the "knock on the door in the middle of the night", previously little known in that country, where the central government usually lacked the power to enforce its will beyond Kabul.

Well, it worked for Stalin, didn't it ? But the Russian people were accustomed over centuries to autocratic despotism. The Afghan tradition was one of heavily armed local autonomy. Results - teachers and doctors were shot, schools and clinics burned, power lines brought down. Heroic Man 1, Economic Man 0 (n.b. - that doesn't mean I think it's heroic to shoot teachers and doctors).

So repression on a pretty hefty scale - and by their own people - didn't work. The Allies aren't capable of that kind of represssion, not would I want them to be. So that's out. Trouble is, the Afghans - especially the Pashtun - look on non-violent persuasion as weakness. And they don't like infidels. And they're great fighters. With some nasty lines in the mutilation and torture department. As I say, it's like trying to introduce democracy to 14th century England.



The other thing. In the comments, 'Revolution Harry' pointed out to 'gradualist Laban' that while Reagan and Thatcher certainly armed the mujahideen fighters, the whole thing was kicked off by Jimmy Carter.

On July 3, 1979, US President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to conduct covert propaganda operations against the communist regime.

Carter advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated "According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise." Brzezinski himself played a fundamental role in crafting U.S. policy, which, unbeknownst even to the mujahideen, was part of a larger strategy "to induce a Soviet military intervention." In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski recalled:

We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would...That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap...The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War.

Additionally, on July 3, 1979, U.S. President Carter signed a presidential finding authorizing funding for anticommunist guerrillas in Afghanistan. As a part of the Central Intelligence Agency program Operation Cyclone, the massive arming of Afghanistan's mujahideen was started.

What's particularly striking is that Zbigniew Brzezinski isn't some forgotten Cold Warrior of the past - far from it. He's apparently one of Barack Obama's closest advisers.

Is This A New Stealth Tax ?

Let's get this right. Tell me if I've got it base over apex.

HMG give the banks big wodges of dosh in exchange for preference shares (with a high rate of interest) or lend the dosh and get interest.

The BoE then slash interest rates.

But the banks don't slash their rates to borrowers by anywhere near as much. Some haven't cut rates at all. "We are not charities" they say.

The money the banks are making by not cutting rates is being used to pay back HMG as quickly as possible, so that the banks can get back with all haste to the traditional dodgy asset valuation, inflated profits (due to dodgy asset valuation) and related bonuses.

In the meantime the banks nail the punters and pass the cash on to Gordo, who needs all the income he can get. Competition is long forgotten (the head of the 'independent' Competition Commission is the dog that doesn't bark), and by some osmotic agreement the few well-capitalised banks graciously refrain from lowering rates to lure customers from their weaker brethren - don't want another Northern Rock, do we now ?

The beauty is that the banks get nearly all the blame and Gordo gets nearly all the money.

OK, what's wrong with this picture ?

Mass Immigration AND Mass Unemployment !

The Home Office yesterday announced a so-called "shortage list" of 800,000 jobs which employers will be allowed to recruit for from outside the European Economic Area.

Another big rise in UK unemployment is expected in official figures out later. The jobless total is expected to pass 1.8 million, reaching its highest level since 1998. The total was 1.79 million in the last figures up to August.

They Really Do Think We're Stupid

There is a certain method in Labour's madness. Only the dumbing down of the education system (for which see here) could possibly allow John Hutton MP to think he'd get away with this :

The need to stop Taleban control of Afghanistan is as significant as resisting Hitler's invasion of Poland, Defence Secretary John Hutton has said.

Speaking on Armistice Day he said if the Taleban won, Britain would have to face the consequences of terrorism.

"In one sense, it has the same significance as the invasion of Belgium in 1914 and the invasion of Poland in 1939," he said.

Let's take that a bit at a time :

a) no it isn't - and for his info we didn't resist Hitler's invasion of Poland (we were not physically capable of resisting it, to be fair) - we declared war on Germany, which was not at all the same thing. Poland remained an occupied country for the next 50 years.

b) no matter what happens in Afghanistan, we'll continue to be at risk of terrorism. Even in WW2, while few German agents managed to do much damage in the UK (thanks to internment and a non-porous border), the IRA were still able to detonate bombs on the mainland, because the enablers were there - a large Irish population in which to hide and traffic across the Irish Sea between the North and the mainland. Similar enablers exist for Islamist terror.

c) no it doesn't. Not unless the Taleban acquire nuclear technology from across the border. Even then they can only kill some of us, not conquer and occupy us as Germany threatened to do. Any threats of conquest and occupation which exist - and there are some - have their root causes in our own cultural weakness, not Taleban strength. As Toynbee puts it, great civilisations are not killed but commit suicide.

I've said my bit on the Taleban and on Afghanistan. We're wasting our time there doing anything but duffing up terror camps - and even there, as I said above, the solutions lie within our borders rather than in Helmand or the NWFP.

One passing point - the problems of reconstruction and the battle against feudalism are pretty much precisely those the Soviet-backed Afghan Government, then the Soviets themselves, faced in the 1980s. The mujahideen were killing doctors and teachers, burning schools just as they are today, while the Soviets were building generators and trying to keep the power lines up (pylons are terribly vulnerable things). And Reagan and Thatcher, for 'strategic reasons', armed them. I thought at the time (I was a lefty then) it was morally indefensible and I still do.

Take a quick look at the history of Afghanistan from the arrival of a left-wing (in Afghan terms) regime in 1978, through the Soviet intervention and the post-Soviet civil war to which a Taleban administration was, initially at least a blessed contrast. Not a lot of hopeful stuff there. Even the good guys are bad guys.

There's a Radio Four series about Afghanistan - the current one is called 'Into The Morass' which gives you an idea where they're coming from. Nonetheless it's worth a listen. It'll probably only be there a week.

A Post or Two ...

At Biased BBC.

Reading the Booker Rising blog made me want to find out more about Booker T Washington, for whom the blog is named.

I've started reading his autobiography, Up From Slavery. Fascinating stuff.

After that I'll start on another great man - Frederick Douglass. Just check out these quotes.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.

A Few Flash Floods Down the Curate's Lane ...

The Obama win doesn't mean that a thousand years of peace and love (Guardian style) are upon us quite yet. Steyn and the Pub Philosopher on the Proposition 8 vote, in which Californians who voted Obama also voted to keep marriage heterosexual.

Obama's chief of staff is a chap who's dad was an Irgun terrorist against the British , and who volunteered his services to the Israeli military in Gulf War II (i.e. the first American Gulf War - Gulf War I was the far bloodier Iran/Iraq conflict). Whatever that tells us, I think we can assume that Obama's unlikely to be proposing the dismantling of the State of Israel in the near future. He will stick to the two-state solution which has been so conspicuously successful to date.

Domestic politics post-credit crunch are increasingly unpredictable. Gordo has indeed recovered somewhat in the polls - and it looks as if, after years when Labour would attack the Tories for proposing "unfunded, uncosted tax cuts", asking rhetorically on which hospitals the axe would fall, the two parties are in competition to see who can promise the biggest unfunded tax cuts.

Back to Obama - my best scenario would be for the US to enter upon a period of military and economic isolationism - not good for 'the world economy' but perhaps good for us, making us face problems which we're going to have to face sooner or later anyway. The US security blanket has infantilised the nations of Europe - perhaps they need a bracing period of chill. If Obama was serious (which I'm not at all sure he is) about rebuilding US industry, maybe a UK government might get the hint and do something about UK manufacturing. We've been dismantling it for 30 years under both parties. They would fail in their efforts - but at least they'd be acknowledging a problem. Diagnosis is the first step to treatment.

It's all terribly interesting.

Kylee Dibble - Man Convicted

At his second trial after the jury failed to reach a verdict on the first one (the defendant said he left in the early hours and someone else must have come in, killed her, smashed her piggy-bank for its contents and set fire to the place), smackhead Nicky Robinson has been convicted of the Kylee Dibble murder.

"the blood of the Romans"

Decent of Bilal Abdulla to identify us with the mighty empire of two thousand years back.

The draft will continues: "God has blessed us the ability to lick the blood of the Romans (a reference to westerners] as you have done before us in the past."

The court heard Abdulla went on to rail against "the Kingdom of Evil".

He is alleged to have written: "It destroyed our caliphate, tore apart our unity, defamed and distorted our religion and stabbed us in the heart the day it established that infernal state in our Palestine."

The court was told that, in a reference to conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, he wrote: "Their soldiers kill the young and old. They do not discriminate between men and women, so why should we? If the policy of their army is to kill women and children, then only a similar policy would deter them."

"These people do not care about what is happening in our land as they are all busy with alcoholic drinking and with their intimate friends…these people can only be awakened by the sound of booby traps and the Mujahideen hailing 'God is great'."

Hmmm. "These people do not care about what is happening in our land".

In separate letters, he praised Islamist fighters in Iraq and called on the Muslim community in Britain to "leave this land of unbelievers and atheism before losing your religion".

That's the thing, old chap. Most of "these people" do not care about what's happening in their land, either. I can't help thinking his advice to British Muslims is too pessimistic. Hang on in there, be fruitful and multiply - and you may well find that the mountain does come to Mohammed.

I Don't Know ...

Either the New Wave of British Nazism (NWOBN - © Laban Tall 2008) is as incompetent as the New Wave of British Jihad (NWOBJ - © Laban Tall 2007), or there's something funny going on.

If you were in possession of timers, weedkiller, firelighters and tennis balls in connection with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism, and travelling on the train, would you really take time out to be abusive to a railway servant, resulting in your arrest and discovery ? It makes you wonder if someone knew about him all along.

He is accused on five counts of recording or possessing information or documents likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. The documents allegedly include notebooks, a folder containing drawings and handwritten notes, the WAFFEN SS UK Members Handbook, and a book entitled Counter Bomb.

The Waffen SS UK Members Handbook ? I'm not sure the Waffen SS was a membership organisation, let alone one with a British branch. I thought you had to be invited.

I wonder what he was doing in Suffolk ? Perhaps, as a loyal member of the Waffen SS (isn't that treasonable ?) he was planning an attack on the birthplace of British radar at Bawdsey, where the Post Óffice carried out the pioneering work in the 30s. Someone ought to tell him he's a bit late.

Once is happenstance ...

... twice is coincidence

... three times is enemy action.

Samizdata note what appears to be a concerted move by the government towards restricting bloggers.

Some Discharged Fireworks On The Curate's Path

It's literally enough to make a cat laugh :

The new codes of practice for owners of dogs, cats and horses, just released for consultation, are part of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to prevent cruelty. The guidance says that breaching the three codes will not in itself be a crime, but it could prove to be the deciding factor in whether an individual is found guilty in court of a pet welfare offence – which carries a maximum jail sentence of six months or a fine of up to £20,000. Opposition policiticans criticised the "over the top" rules that "take people for fools".

However, Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said the new laws afford animals "greater protection than ever before". Launching the eight-week consultation, Mr Benn said: "These three new codes of practice will outline the responsibilities of owners under the Act and give practical advice on how to fulfil them. This means no one will be able to claim ignorance as an excuse for mistreating any animal."

The guidelines cover the environment for animals, diet, the company they enjoy, ensuring they exhibit normal behaviour patterns, as well as health and welfare issues.

The code of practice for dogs advises against taking a dog for a walk during the hottest part of the day or feeding it less than an hour before vigorous exercise in order to avoid "bloating". Owners should groom dogs with long hair at least once a day and all dogs should have teeth cleaned with dog chews or canine toothpaste as part of routine care.

Training dogs should be done through "positive reinforcement" rather than punishment that can lead to behavioural problems in the future. Owners can spot signs of stress such as barking excessively, urinating indoors or yawning when not tired.

Is there any part of our lives these people don't want to regulate ? I'll be 'barking excessively' if I read many more stories like the above.

The de-Christianisation of Britain continues ...

Plans to end the dominance of the Anglican faith at the daily opening of Parliament and have multi-faith prayers modelled on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day are to be considered by the House of Lords' procedure committee.

The change could lead to a rotational approach to daily prayers, where different faiths are represented on a particular day, in theway the Today programme gives a voice to different religions throughout the week.

Lord Brabazon of Tara, the chairman of the committee, is to look at a number of ideas being drafted by the Sikh peer Lord Rana and other peers. Under current arrangements, all sittings in both Houses begin with prayers which follow the Christian faith, a tradition which began in the middle of the 16th century.

Bonita Meyersfeld, an adviser to Lord Rana, said the crossbench peer had gathered support for a number of proposals, one of which was a system based on Thought for the Day. The idea is supported by the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Roberts of Llandudno, a Methodist minister. Attendance at morning prayers is voluntary but members of the public are excluded.

Aaargh ! Woof ! Woof !

Afterthoughts ...

Wasn't Obama's victory speech terrific ? As were the gracious words of John McCain. Obama hit all the right buttons, real lump in the throat stuff.

In fact, the last victory speech which had such an effect on me was delivered in the early hours of May 2nd, 1997.

One or two commenters, noting the voter intimidation in Philadelphia, implied that the US was on a South African trajectory.

I think not. I haven't the figures to hand, but as I recall the black percentage of the US population is actually falling, due to high rates of abortion (one black baby in three) and Hispanic immigration. If anything, demography implies that US politics may become more Mexican.

The Mexican Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, an ally of President Felipe Calderon, died last night when a small plane he was travelling in crashed into evening rush hour traffic in Mexico City. The reason for the crash was not clear but a civil aviation disaster expert told Reuters that sabotage could not be ruled out, along with other possible causes like engine failure.

Calderon, who is waging a high-stakes war on Mexico's powerful drug cartels, mourned the loss of a close aide and friend who had worked with him for years.

Steve Sailer's new Obama book, currently free as a pdf, (link possibly non-work friendly) goes into some detail about the Reverend Wright's church and its theology. But there's a much longer essay on the same subject by Stanley Kurtz here. Quite entertaining stuff - James Cone and the Rev Wright hate white liberals just as much as they hate white conservatives :

Indeed, one of the most striking features of Black Theology and Black Power is its strident attack on white liberals. According to Cone, "when white do-gooders are confronted with the style of Black Power, realizing that black people really place them in the same category with the George Wallaces, they react defensively, saying, 'It's not my fault' or 'I am not responsible.'" But Cone insists that white, liberal do-gooders are every bit as responsible as the most dyed-in-the-wool segregationists. Well before it became a cliche, Cone boldly set forth the argument for institutional racism--the notion that "racism is so embedded in the heart of American society that few, if any, whites can free themselves from it."

The liberal's favorite question, says Cone, is "What can I do?" He replies that, short of turning radical and putting their lives on the line behind a potentially violent revolution, liberals can do nothing. The real liberal question to blacks, says Cone, is "What can I do and still receive the same privileges as other whites and--this is the key--be liked by Negroes?" Again, he answers, "Nothing."

Ironic really. White do-gooders are all over the shop at present telling the world how Obama transcends race and what a great unifier he is. This is the stuff Obama listened to for twenty years, before discovering how awful it was around the same time the media discovered it.

When we consider that nearly the whole of Wright's original congregation left, that other active members departed, and that Wright's radicalism made relations in the United Church of Christ rocky, Barack Obama's decision to stay appears all the more striking. Indeed, Blow the Trumpet in Zion is filled with attempts by Cone's followers to come to grips with their rejection by the broader black community. Nearly every sermon Wright preaches, as well as his now-infamous bulletins and church magazines, is filled with his radicalism, and it's therefore impossible not to conclude that Obama was broadly attracted to Wright's politics.

The good news (in the sense that his racial identification at least isn't driven by religious fervour, a powerful force) is that Obama seems to have been more attracted to the pro-black/anti-white bit than the religious bit. A/c/t his own testimony, the young radical was advised that his "organising" work would meet with more response from church leaders if he 'belonged' to a church - and he chose Wright's. His interviews with Revds Phillips and Wright don't exactly sound like those of a devoted Christian, more like those of an ambitious agnostic :

“Nothing’s harder than reaching young brothers like yourself,” he said. “They worry about looking soft. They worry about what their buddies are gonna say about ’em. They tell themselves church is a woman’s thing-that it’s a sign of weakness for a man to admit that he’s got spiritual needs."

The reverend looked up at me then, a look that made me nervous. I decided to shift the conversation to more familiar ground ...

Nonetheless, the guy's a bright cookie. As Sailer says, he possesses one of the finest minds of any US politician. I watch events with interest.

Oh, and I see various predictions that other countries will give the new kid in the playground a push or two didn't take long to come true.

Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned Wednesday, setting a combative tone that clashed with global goodwill over Barack Obama's election.

In his first state of the nation speech, Medvedev blamed Washington for the war in Georgia and the world financial crisis and suggested it was up to Washington to mend badly damaged ties.

Medvedev also proposed increasing the Russian presidential term to six years from four — a change that could deepen Western concern over democracy in Russia and play into the hands of his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has not ruled out a return to the Kremlin.

Extending the presidential term could mean a possible 12 more years in the top office for the popular Putin.

Finished ...

the Obama book. Most interesting. Highly recommended, especially as he's probably going to be the Big Man by tomorrow.

Like Tony Blair, to his admirers he's the blank slate that you can project pretty much any dream onto. As with Mr Blair, we shall see. Can he be worse domestically than TB was in the UK ?

I'm pretty sanguine about / resigned to the result, although you never can tell - and a good thing too, as happy November days like this one come but rarely.

Dalrymple - and Bromsgrove !

Bromsgrove recently hit the headlines when the (Conservative) council ordered an allotment-holder who'd been targeted by thieves to remove the barbed-wire he'd erected to protect his plants and tools - in case someone hurt themselves on it.

"With regard to the barbed wire, when this is identified on site, we are obliged to request its removal or remove it on health and safety grounds to the general public, as this is a liability issue. This is a requirement enforced by our health and safety department."

The great Dalrymple - whose old stamping ground of Cape Hill wasn't so very far from Marlbrook - is not amused.

"part of her culture"

If these allegations are true - and the court's found in her favour - chalk up another great success for the social worker's default multicultural setting - "cringe".

Rashana is now 33 years old and lives in London. She grew up in Oldham with her mother, father and three brothers.

When admitted to hospital at three weeks old, she had suffered what was described as a non-accidental head injury. Social services recognised she was at risk, and placed her on the Child Protection Register.

But at the age of 14 months she was back in hospital suffering from malnutrition. Her hospital notes from this visit contain the words "baby had no visitors".

Over the years she was in and out of hospital with injuries, mainly inflicted by her mother.

There are laws against that sort of thing. Pity they don't get enforced for everyone.

Rashana was beaten throughout her childhood, threatened with a knife and, in her words "bounced off the walls". "I can remember coming home from school and I'd be scared to see what I was going to get when I got home, why I was going to get beaten up tonight," she said. It was a 15 minute walk home from school but if she didn't get home in 10 minutes she was beaten.

When she was assigned a social worker as a teenager she claims she was told the actions of her family was "part of her culture" and to "put up with it".

At 16 she told a teacher she thought she was pregnant and then revealed that she had been raped by her older brother since the age of 13. Rashana was not pregnant but insisted on being taken into care. Although her brother was given a caution for incest she was pressured into going back home by social services.

She claims social services officials were afraid of being called racist, and told her: "You're Asian, you shouldn't be in a care home."

Now to be fair, the right-on social worker who can find no evil in non-whites is becoming a bit of a cliche - remember the woman who ascribed the late Victoria Climbie's evident fear of her homicidal aunt to the 'respect for elders' so common in 'Caribbean culture' (she was African). But I'm not sure it's quite mainstream enough to be a standard part of the legal team's armoury in such cases - anyone know ? I shall go on the assumption that she's telling the truth.

A Few Bags of Leaves In The Curate's Yard

Pacifist Spain is rapidly expanding its arms sales.

Aged feminista Erica Jong predicts the second American Civil War, blood on the streets and no improvement in Jane Fonda's backache should Obama lose.

Noooooooooooooo !

UK troops may be deployed to Congo as a last resort to end conflict, the government has warned.

The European Union may have to send troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo if the existing United Nations force needs to be bolstered and peace talks fail, Britain’s Africa Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said today.

“We have certainly got to have it as an option which is developed and on the table if we need it,” he said.

So we're already overstretched and underkitted in our (IMHO foolish) attempt to make Afghanistan a democracy, and he wants to stretch the armed forces just a bit more, in the basket case of basket cases. Send the Belgians ! Or hire some mercenaries - Gordon must have a few billion lying around now he's abandoned spending limits.

Jack Straw talks the talk and frightens the Chick Yogs of this world (Justin seems a decent chap and writes well, but he insists on taking populist ministerial pronouncements seriously, despite 11 years of contrary evidence) brilliantly.

The public expect the justice system "to punish those who have broken the law", he will say, adding that it is time "to go back to the sort of plain English we all understand". He will suggest that some of the language around how to deal with offenders has been hijacked by the criminal justice lobby, which is concerned with phrases like the "criminogenic needs of offenders". Government policy should "recognise that being a victim of crime is one of the most traumatic things an individual, their family and their community can face", he will say.
"Offenders must take responsibility for their choice to commit crime, they must be held to account for their actions, and challenged to make a better choice in the future."

We're yet to see any evidence of him walking the walk, and IMHO the wait will be long and barren.

The training courses run by Juniper Training sound interesting. I presume the company exist purely to service Gordon's New Deal (aka attach themselves firmly to the stream of taxpayer revenue associated therewith) :

As part of the session, jobseekers were given a questionnaire, set by Juniper Training in Tamworth, Staffordshire, in a bid to boost their self-esteem. However, Mr Lightwood was left astounded after one of the questions asked if he ever "found it difficult to perform adequately or without embarrassment when involved in sex". The organisers defended the question, arguing that an applicant's skills in the bedroom were linked to their abilities in the workplace.

Hmm. Looks like the personal's not just political - it's economic too.

"I asked the woman who was running the session why on earth she needed to know about my sex life. She told me that if you're not performing well in bed it can affect how you do at work".

Vas vs Woollas.

Mr Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, voiced unhappiness at Mr Woolas's comments during a visit to India where he told business people there that contrary to the minister's remarks there would be no cap on the number of people allowed to migrate to the United Kingdom. He is quoted on several Indian news websites as saying: "There is a wrong perception that the new system will cap the number of migrants, but that's totally untrue." According to the Economic Times of India, Mr Vaz said that the number of skilled migrants entering the UK under the new points based system brought in by Labour would now actually increase.

Keith Vaz represents Leicester. Some interesting comments about how multiculturalism has panned out there in this CiF piece on the late great Orient and Baggies winger (but not exactly an icon of black history) Laurie Cunningham.

UPDATE - a Leicester correspondent writes :

I thought I'd set you straight about what the Guardian commenters said about my home town.

Mostly, the comments were really overwrought, and not a fair representation of Leicester. To pick off a couple of the accusations:

Race riots? Hardly - the odd scuffle maybe, but no more than that on a regular or mass basis. I've lived here for most of my life, and aside from a bit of trouble in the 1980s, not a lot that I'm aware of.

Night time in the city unwelcome to a white male with a shaved head? I go into town most Fridays or Satursdays and never felt unwelcome as a white guy... In fact, like many 'diverse' cities, the centre gets dominated by white people socially, with a few areas dominated by Hindu Asians - but even there, you'd seem more out-of-place than threatened.

The reason why I figured it was worth mentioning - aside from the fact that I continue to have a love of the old place - is that the Guardian commenters portrayed a rather cliched picture of multicultural city life which (1) while sometimes true, isn't always so - and is therefore easy enough for multiculturalists to bat away, and (2) ignores a more important point, that the alternatives are not constrained to either Oldham/Bradford barely-concealed hostility or Notting Hill melting pot "Rainbow Nation", because there's a third alternative, which Leicester represents - mutual indifference.

On one level, what city of 300,000 people is? But ethnicity does matter in seeing the divides. An interesting example is the continuing dominance of white people in running the city; equally, a Saturday afternoon at the Walkers Stadium (football) or at Welford Road (rugby) remains more white than the melting pot notion would suggest - primarily down to different levels of interest, and the same applies in reverse to the Diwali celebrations. The only points of contact tend to be economic - work and shopping - but I somehow doubt that community reduced to a partnership of consumption and production is really any longer worthy of the name.

The major source of ethnic tension to have emerged in recent times is the continued arrival of new, poor migrants - especially the Somalis. Most of Leicester's earlier migrants were either early Pakistani or middle-period Indian and Ugandan Asians (all aspiring middle class), and so tend to be pretty well established and with quite a wealthy element too - and that includes many Muslims, in direct contrast to the situation as I understand it in Bradford, etc. But they seem to resent new immigration far more than the white population does - there is reportedly no small amount of resistance to the Somalis from their co-religionists from Pakistan. That's another important dimension of Leicester's situation compard to the Bradford/Oldham scenario - its claim to diversity isn't just a cover for polarisation, its ethnic composition actually is quite complex. The upside of this is that it limits more open conflict (nobody's that dominant), but the downside is that the resentments often remain, diminishing solidarity.

As for the white population - well, as noted, some have left, and my guess is that the 2011 census will tell a continuation of that story. A number of old industrial villages have become major suburbs over the past 15 years. Among some of those people, and among many that remain in the city, there is a certain angst about the city's trajectory, but one that's under the surface - people don't like to proclaim it for fear of being labelled a racist. But the feeling of dislocation is there... And one thing that adds to that sense of dislocation is the sense that the city is now only ever mentioned (and certainly celebrated) nationally for its ethnic diversity - in that manner where, at times, one might be forgiven for thinking that the city could achieve its true potential only when the white people leave.

I'll finish on a positive note - in my experience, because of this background, many Leicester people have a far more relaxed attitude to race than I find in most places. By this, I certainly don't mean the equal opps multiculti types who seem to dominate the supposed authorities - they're the most uptight race-obsessives going, and they've spawned quite an industry. But most people aren't don't live in that world, and most of them aren't bigots either - and they find a way to rub along, and often very successfully - and this includes an acknowledgement of their differences, and even the funnier side of them. Some hope there about the possibilities of coming together. But all this tends to be between indigenous white people and the established Asian population - and certainly not the more recent arrivals (including Poles), who have arrived in a very different time, and are not encouraged either to integrate or even to compromise with the city's ways much at all.

Steve Sailer on Obama

I've not blogged much about Obama/McCain - mainly because I didn't know much about Obama and what I knew about McCain I wasn't too keen on.

I see a nice-looking chap, good talker, comes over well in the Blair/Cameron style. I don't see much, if anything, in the way of policy. He was against the Iraq war, but that's the past. He accepts that the surge has been a success. I don't think it'll be a disaster for America if he wins, although I'm prepared to be proved wrong. I'm somewhat uneasy that he seems to have a hung out a good deal with people who hate their country - in fact is married to one. But the responsibilities of office have a way of concentrating the mind. With John McCain, you know what you'll get - strong policy abroad coupled with mass immigration at home. Obama's more of a cypher.

Like the BBC and all good lefties, I expect race and racism to play a large part in the election. It's just that I see the racism as mostly coming from white liberals. For black voters, look at the latest figures :

"White" voters (I don't know where Hispanics end up) 44% Obama, 44% McCain
"Black" voters 91% Obama, 1% McCain.

Bush got 8% of the black vote in 2000. Admittedly you'd expect Republican ratings to fall among black voters as they have among whites. But a fall from 8 to 1 ? Hmm.

I digress. And I know nowt about Obama.

The good news is that Steve Sailer, an American writer who treads those dangerous boards where race, culture, economics and genetics meet (he's been described as "a leading promoter of racist pseudoscience" by a "progressive media watchdog group", FWTW - I wrote of him "IQ, genetics, racial differences, racial preferences (i.e. things that would be called racist if a white person did them), all sorts of things you're not supposed to talk about. But no swivel-eyed loon he."), has written a book about him. Well, it's (from what I've read - I'm on page 79 out of 265) half biography, half book review/exegesis of Obama's 1995 book Dreams From My Father : A Story of Race and Inheritance.

And it's unputdownable - or as uputdownable as a pdf can be.

You can download it here. The host site (VDARE.com) may not be work-friendly, given that a/c/t Wikipedia the site has been described as a 'hate site'.

But I've linked to a couple of Sailer pieces before. No hater he - a well-read chap with a neat sense of humour and an interest in other cultures. I don't agree with everything he writes, but he's worth reading. And this is riveting stuff.

I'll precis the beast as much as a man can who's only read a quarter of it. Obamas USP to people who take politics seriously is/was that he transcended race. I remember reading - and agreeing with - a sober post at Booker Rising a year or two back, to the effect that at last we had a black politician whose skin colour wasn't the most important thing about him. That he could be a politician just like any other was the victory. Alas for premature hopes !

Because that's not what Obama thinks. To him, personally, his race is exceedingly important - hence the subtitle of the book.

Remarkably, much of Obama’s campaign image—the transcender of race, the redeemed Christian, the bipartisan moderate, etc.—is debunked in Obama’s own 1995 memoir. Obama’s potential Achilles heel has always been that he has
such a gift for self-expression combined with so much introspective self-absorption that he can't help revealing himself to the few who invest the effort to read carefully his polished and subtle (but fussy and enervating) prose.

I won't go on, except to say that Obama's mother comes across as a very modern type, reminding me of one or two girls I knew at university - white, bright middle-class girl for whom blackness is somehow more authentic - more real - than anything else around her. In her son's words :

I felt as if I were being given a window into her heart, the unreflective heart of her youth. I suddenly realized that the depiction of childlike blacks I was now seeing
on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad‘s dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white middle-class girl from Kansas, the
promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different.

Her son's politics seem to be far more a product of her teaching than anything from Obama's absent father. But enough of this posting already. I need to get back to the book. Read. Enjoy.

All Your Children Belong To Us

Local "Democracy" Week in action. Background - the proposed travellers site at the delightful Norfolk village of Spooner Row is vehemently opposed by villagers. The village schoolchildren are attending a workshop run by Norwich and Norfolk Race Equality Council, as part of Local Democracy Week.

Mr Wakeman said: "The two people taking the workshop asked the children if they wanted to stand up and make a pledge.

"None of the children stood up because I suspect they felt awkward, but the pledge was read out anyway.

"They were asked to make a series of promises to be kind to gipsy and traveller children, welcome them into the community and not bully them.

"The children were encouraged to put their fingers in the air or their hands on their hearts to signify their acceptance.

"I am very unhappy about any child of primary school age being asked to take any form of pledge to any group in society.

"But it was also of concern because of the heightened level of anxiety felt by many of the pupils' parents about the proposed travellers' site."

Mr Wakeman has now made an official complaint to the council.

The local council, btw, is Tory-controlled. Now I'm in favour of children - and people being nice to each other full stop - even if their parents work for Norwich and Norfolk Race Equality Council. But State (and NNREC will be totally tax-funded) indoctrination ? As the people of Cottenham found out, discrimination and hatred cuts both ways.

Council officers have insisted they knew nothing about the pledge and denied trying to "brainwash children" into accepting the controversial plan.

But one parent, who asked not to be named, said: "It appeared as it the council was targeting children with propaganda to try and get them on side.

"My first thought was that it was disgusting to target children in such an underhand way when so many people oppose the new site."

Spooner Row Primary School head teacher Simon Wakeman said he believed it was "inappropriate" for children to be asked to make the promise.