New Labour's Britain

Where government peeks into the bedroom and regulates your fetishes.

I borrow the smalldeadanimals style to bring another bit of nonsense from across the pond. New legislation is about to be enacted criminalizing out-of-the-ordinary porn, because it is supposedly encouraging everyone who views it to commit the same violent acts depicted in it. The source is the BBC (here).

The tragic death of Jane Longhurst, murdered by a killer who frequently visited sites depicting rape and violent action, is being strumentalized by her mother to force ambiguous and dangerously vague legislation in a Parliament controlled by a meddling Labour Party.

But the government has sought to broaden the definition and the bill includes phrases such as "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life".

So if it looks like it could hurt, it's banned. I am against violence in all its forms, and personally find the kind of porn this bill seeks to tackle very distasteful. However Mrs Longhurst is barking up the wrong tree.

The duty of government is to protect rights and educate about responsibility. It is our duty as free citizens to respect the rights of others, including their right to physical and emotional integrity. Whatever one gets turned on by is no concern of the State, what's important is this person not infringing someone else's right to own their body.

What does this new provision do? It deals with a distasteful kind of pornography very vaguely, in typical New Labour spirit of leaving the courts and human rights interpretations to sort out the mess. It does nothing to prevent the emergence of psychotic killers like the one who took Jane Longhurst's life. Nothing is done to educate people about rights and responsibilities, nothing is done to promote respect for the other, nothing is done to speed up the justice system and improve investigation techniques and tools.

This bill is nothing but hot air that will end up scalding all Britons who happen to be turned on by unconventional sexual imagery, not necessarily the result of abuse. Violence is violence, and there's enough laws to deal with it. If someone is abused jail the abuser, don't prowl people's bedrooms and sexual habits. Dealing with consequences instead of causes is a propaganda stunt that does nothing to improve your country.

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she [Mrs Longhurst] responds with a blunt "hard luck".

"There is no reason for this stuff. I can't see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane's human rights?"

She's right about Jane's human rights. Her right to be free from harm was violated by a sick madman. Where does everyone else come into the picture? Engaging in a useless crusade will only drive those who get aroused by violence even more underground, further from the eye of those who could send a danger signal such as doctors, counsellors and investigators. Isn't that going to worsen the situation?

I wonder why human beings always want to point the finger at something intangible and general, and refuse to dig deeper into the causes of these disturbing acts. They focus on what's flashy. Remember: if the explanation is too simple, it's wrong.

Failure of US abstinence programmes exposed

When it comes to sex and education about it, a veil of stupidity and hypocrisy seems to descend upon those in charge, especially in some parts of the US. Although it is no different from most political people around the globe, in this case we are talking about influencable minds that may be driven to wrong conclusions and wrong lines of thought.

The BBC in this report shows some of the shortcomings of US abstinence programmes in schools, and how enthusiasm for them is waning.

At least 17 states have opted out of the system and others have suspended funding while Congress investigates whether such programmes work.

Congress would better spend their time fixing the economy and removing some draconian legislation (eg laws forbidding inter-state health insurance purchases). Put young healthy people of both genders together for over a decade in the restricted space of the school and sooner or later some of them will have sex, some will decide not to and some will want to but won't find the right person. If I were to be crude no piece of legislation can make a state of arousal go away, so what should be done about it?

Certainly something MUST be done, if this statistic is true:

[...]a report earlier this year from America's leading health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which revealed one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

So how does the federal government spend its money? Funding programmes that just hammer in the "don't have sex" message. Thankfully, as the report states, only a quarter of schools teach abstinence, while the rest do some sort of sex education. Still, 25% is twenty-five percent too many.

"This national programme which has wasted $1.5bn (£750m) of tax money is a failure and our teens are paying the price," says Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood."

So is this a rant against teaching abstinence? Not at all. I decry the means, not the ends. I for one believe that teenaged kids shagging themselves silly 24/7 isn't exactly the definition of a free and civilized country. However I am outraged at the deception that is inherent in the kind of abstinence teaching those unfortunate kids are getting. Educators choose to close their eyes and look the other way.

"They don't touch on subjects like sexuality, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), birth control - it's not allowed because of abstinence-only education. It leaves you on a cliff-hanger - and a lot of teenagers become sexually active in their middle school years."

And if they don't stay quiet and deny you information, they take things in their own hands and lie:

He [Roger Norman] runs an organization called Wonderful Days which does not receive government funding but teaches abstinence as part of the health curriculum in some local schools.

[...] "Self control leads to a happy, joyful life. If we can learn to control the most basic of drives - the sex drive - for good, then we can control drugs, gangs, alcohol and abusive anger."

His lessons promote marriage and virginity - for both partners - as an ideal. They emphasise disease as a consequence of sex before marriage.

His argument seems to be that you can blame all the problems of this world, from abusive behaviour to street gangs to alcoholism on sex. Not stupidity, not lack of education, not deprivation, not poverty, not even lack of social mobility but SEX. As per the last point, last time I checked a ring on your finger didn't protect you from genital warts. Go figure.

Furthermore, his "alumni" display a remarkably skewed view of the whole of humanity, in particular their peers employing their energy in other, dare I say more entertaining ways:

Eighteen-year-old Ashley says she believes teenagers who experiment with sex are laying the foundations for troubled relationships later in life.

"At some point everybody ends up getting married. Everybody wants commitment at some point and nobody likes to be cheated on.

"But a lot of the young people I know who go around have experiences with lots of different people are just preparing themselves for not knowing how to be committed to somebody.

"Once you get into the practice of doing whatever you want, it's hard to change when you're older."

I guess "try before you buy" rarely crosses these kids' minds. Surely enough these programmes do end up persuading SOME people not to have sex:

Sixteen-year-old Josh says he relies on friends to help him stay abstinent.

"I have a lot of close friends and we pretty much agree on the same thing so we keep each other in line most of the time. Yes, it's difficult, but my friends are there and I'm there for them, and it gets easier if you have friends who agree with you."

I do not want to judge those who are guilty of nothing but being led into deception by people they trust (including their parents). What angers me is adults who indoctrinate teenagers into lies and falsehood under the pretence of care, religion or school policy. They further encourage those indoctrinated teenagers to go find new converts, with the added pressure of the advice coming from a peer.

You want to teach abstinence and responsible sexual behavior? Fine, I'll help. Instead of making people loathe themselves for their completely natural and healthy desires teach them the purpose of those same wants. Instead of shutting your eyes teach people about STDs and pregnancy so they know there's always an amount of risk associated with sex.

Teach them also what a great measure of trust is implicitly involved in intimate contact, and how that trust should be earned by both partners. While you're at it, tell 'em sex may be good, but if you have it with a person you really love it's GREAT. Ultimately, considered it can be great, you'd want to find the person you know would make it great, and you'd also want to have your fun unspoilt by an STD. Can't a promise of greater fun work better than scare tactics?

The bottom line is that the scaremongering and false approach adopted so far (by many, not all) isn't working. All it does is impose frustration and promote masturbation.

Image courtesy of ipostr.com.

Why "Lights Out" = "Brains Off"

A terrific piece presented by the Science and Public Policy Institute, debunking the entire idea of a "Lights Out" campaign. Even if we ignored the failure of the initiative, however much the media tries to convince us of the contrary, the lack of efficacy of such PR stunts is before our very eyes. The mathematics of it should give all the tree-huggers and Gorologists a remarkably cold shower:

Danish newspapers - coincidentally in the native country of the story of the Emperor's new clothes - happily quoted the WWF regarding the event's overwhelming success. But the entire savings (assuming people didn't use more energy later in the night to make up for lost time) amounted to just 10 tons of carbon-dioxide - equivalent to just one Dane's annual emissions for a full year.

I happen to agree with the author of the piece (Bjorn Lomborg) that the combined efforts of the enviro-apocalyptics will yield nothing but further determination not to give up our hard-earned electrical appliances, cars and energy-inefficient homes:

As some conservative commentators like to point out, the environmental movement has indeed become a dark force, not metaphorically, but literally. Indeed, urging us to sit in darkness will probably only make us realize how unlikely it is that we will ever be convinced to give up the advantages of fossil fuels.

I believe in climate change, because I see that something is going on. Winters seem to come later and leave later, Moscow used to have -20 C on New Year's Eve and now single-digit negative temperatures seem to be the norm, while other places seem to be getting colder and it snows in Baghdad. I am no climate scientist to realize something is changing. I do not believe, however, that there's a one-encompassing universal explanation to all these changes. Furthermore I cannot reasonably believe that a half-baked presidential loser can champion an argument of such excruciating complexity AND make a movie about it.

If more people encouraged us to sit down, do the math and actually act in our own self-interest (save on energy bills and gas, for example) we might make progress. If it helps the planet, the better. Meanwhile, we'll have more money in our pocket with which to buy Al Gore's movie. Or a good pint, if you're me.

China recalls death cargo, and how responsible markets could have prevented the stalemate

After days of stalemate China has finally backed down and recalled its weapons shipment to Zimbabwe. The story is fetched from the English edition of Al-Jazeera.

Kudos to the dockers trade unions in South Africa for refusing to unload the crates of oppression that Mugabe so fondly wanted. However regular that shipment may have been on paper, the use to which it would be put was so outrageously clear no-one selling those weapons could expect his hands to be clean of innocent Zimbabwean blood.

Commenting on the shipment at a regular foreign ministry press briefing in Beijing, spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the decision had been taken by the Chinese company involved to recall the vessel.

She said the shipment was completely legal and fell within the established norms of international trade.

"In the field of conventional weapons, we have trade relations with some countries. These are consistent with our laws and with Security Council resolutions and China's international obligations," Jiang said.

"We have been very responsible and cautious with regards to weapons exports."

I can say nothing with respect to the obligations, norms and agreements. What amazes me is that someone would actually decide to take an order from a butcher AFTER an election he was clearly losing. Chinese weapons enterprises seem to combine blindness and the most wicked business spirit in a very efficient manner, making the phrase "business is business" sound eerily disturbing.

I may be accused of double standards. On one hand we have the manufacturer's duty to turn a profit (i.e. sell to whoever buys) and the blindness of the free market. On the other we have the concern for the life of innocent Zimbabweans and the clear indication of a butcher's desire to cling to power at any cost. I wish to analyze this situation in the light of a market failure due to the west's inaction and a lack of market transparency.

Mugabe should have been expected to order more firepower, since his own people were turning against him en masse. A transparent international weapons market would have recorded the assassin's bid for weapons and China's willingness to supply them. All the concerned West should have done then (to put their money where their mouth is) was outbid Zimbabwe for any weapons shipment they laid their eyes on.

The end result could have been the impossibility for Zimbabwe to bid against the economic might of the West (unless some rich thug was willing to buy the weapons for Zimbabwe), a weapons supply shortage causing a rise in prices thereby bankrupting many paramilitary organizations or thuggish governments relying on cheap armaments. A weapons stock exchange maybe, like the system we use for oil supplies?

Although I recognize this is no long-term solution, the market does hold a temporary answer to such crises. In the long-term we should all strive for thugs not to be elected to government in the first place and for democratic means to be the sole way of settling issues of government and representation.

Just a hope for now.

What contempt they hold us in!

I feel for Torontonians, caught up in the midst of a fight none of them ever had fault in provoking. The recent actions by the TTC unions trascends the shocking, let alone the wrong.

The CBC, who I'd expect to attempt distortions of reporting in favor of the unions reported, instead, the exact actions and the exact words of the union leaders. Wildcat strikes are an affront to common sense and general sense of duty, but justifying a surprise walkout with these words is frightening:

Union leader Bob Kinnear said giving longer notice would expose workers "to the dangers of assaults from angry and irrational members of the public."

"We have a legal responsibility to protect the safety of our members, and so does the TTC," he said.

Personally I feel offended, as a member of the public, that someone else deems me irrational and angry because a service I would come to expect if I lived in Toronto is suddenly denied to me without any warning. Be I on a date, on business, on a pub crawl or any other activity requiring transport the trade unions would leave me stranded and defenceless. It wouldn't help if I were drunk or broke either when the subway doors were suddenly slammed in my face.

The public is rational, and them getting angry is a legitimate reaction to the strikers' outrageous behavior. Needless to say violence is out of the question, so Mr Kinnear assuming those angels of his constituents would be attacked by angry hoards of assatanated passengers is further proof of the deep and utter contempt in which trade unions hold those outside them.

Throughout many countries trade unions have morphed from defenders of the dignity of labour to the last bastions of privilege and defence against competition and fairness. Whether they may have a point or not (they might well have), the Toronto Transit workers have no right to hold the whole city hostage. Their latest actions deprive their cause of any residual legitimacy they might have had, and immediate mass dismissal would be the mildest reprisal for their acts.

During the London Underground strike that forced the city into a standstill there was a campaign for all shops and enterprises to deny service to the transport union leader for making everyone's life so miserable. Torontonians should do the same too.

Make a sign like the one at the top and place it on the front door of their shop, pub, restaurant, anything. Just to show Bob Kinnear what an angry public can do to make his life as miserable as he makes theirs.

Score one for common sense and justice

Slamming courts whose rulings make no sense may be fun, but giving credit where credit is due is mostly a pleasant task. Ontario's Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the sex offender registry, with Justice Blair noting the likelihood of reoffending trumps the freedoms of the criminal.

The Globe and Mail made my day sunnier. The score since yesterday is thus

Justice: 1, Nonsense: 1.

If more judges had Robert Blair's common sense we'd all rest more assured that the laws of the land were in safe hands to interpret.

Non-funny limericks on a non-funny topic

I would have tried to make them funnier, but the Supreme Court decision isn't. A couple of random limericks might just soothe the frustration. PS: I want them improved.

In Sarnia they had a school,
with a pupil really uncool.
The drugs had him caught,
and brought into court
For a sad show of utter misrule.

There was a young man called Brown,
who lived in Calgary town.
He had lotsa heroin,
was about to be travellin',
And the courts did nothing but frown.

Supreme Court castrates law enforcement

I am not one to slam the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but interpretations of its provisions are fair game. The latest one (as CBC reports) lends itself to ridicule so easily it's pathetic.

The Supreme Court with its recent decision on the use of sniffer dogs has effectively castrated the entire law enforcement force network; by linking the admissibility of evidence to reports of criminal behavior and blatantly ignoring the simple truth that one shouldn't break the law six judges have all but handed Canada to the criminal gangs that smuggle the same drugs that kill and maim so many.

It will thus be safe for the cartels to use one-off or limited-use couriers because people with little or no criminal records in bus terminals cannot arouse reasonable suspicion, provided sniffer dogs were even allowed into the terminal.

But the top court wrote that the police had no evidence that any crime had been committed and that there was nothing to establish that bus depots in general or Calgary in particular are rampant with drug dealers.

Perfect! Now carrying drugs is safe as long as no-one rats you out. Pablo Escobar would send the Supreme Court a thank-you card with flowers! What were they smoking?

A school and a bus terminal, as well as airports, streets, cinemas, stations and the like are public spots where your privacy is invaded by tens or thousands of strangers' eyes. Whereas one's home is one's castle, in public the notion of privacy is somewhat different. This is no argument of the "nothing to hide" sort, just a mere constatation that if law enforcement officials are to protect us from crime and misdemanor they have to be able to do their jobs. One is not supposed to bring magic mushrooms to school, as much as one is not supposed to possess heroin, let alone be clearly intentioned to transport it to other destinations for resale.

I don't know if the judges contemplated the consequences of their incompetence and guaranteeism. This ruling can apply directly to sniffer dogs in airports, since air travel cannot arouse legitimate suspicions, can it?

Whether such catastrophic implications are avoided or not, the message is clear: the notions of "right" and "freedom" are being denuded of the responsibility and law-abiding that comes with them. What's worse, those charged with maintaining law and order are being deprived of the tools and means necessary for their job.

Yikes!

If you are a thug who befriends butchers...

attacking the CNN will backfire!

Despite the general condemnation of the way the Tibet discontent is being handled, despite the tarnished reputation of Chinese exports following the scandals with lead paint and date-rape precursors in kids' toys, despite the evident immorality of the dealings with the murderous Sudanese government, despite it all...

China just BEGS FOR MORE!

When you pick a fight you might consider the consequences, as well as obviously checking your ammunition and equipment for technical faults, scarce logic, lack of common sense or the possibility of backfires. Clearly some geronto-techno-auto-mediocrocrat in Beijing thought toying around with the CNN would be a good idea as well as an ego boost. In my eyes it in't working out that well.

Jack Cafferty, a CNN commentator, attacked the Chinese government labelling them as goons and thugs, as well as generally filing Chinese exports into the "junk" category. Personally I do not think he is far from the truth. A little push for controversy would land me firmly by his side.

This angered the Chinese government who demanded an apology and picked on the apparent (to them) stereotyping by Cafferty of ALL Chinese people as goons and thugs making junk. The nonsensical attack on Cafferty's comments (one of the many) can be read here on Xinhua.

The comments could have been surely more qualified (thus making them stand even stronger in the face of scrutiny). However, it is generally agreed that one cannot accuse a whole nation of the faults of the few, particularly the few who rule. Failure to pick this up denotes stupidity or blindness, or both. The end result is further publicity for Cafferty's comments underlining a sad reality and further humiliation for China before the world public opinion.

However, as Cafferty is accused by the Xinhua-published columnist of double standards, let us take a look at China's actions and friends.

1) Inaction during the Burmese monks' unrest, while butchering of peaceful demonstrators was internationally reported.

2) Dealings with the Sudanese government and stalling discussion on Darfur in international bodies

3) China's very own repression frenzy in Tibet

4) Last but not least, selling weapons to Zimbabwe's government days after the election when it was clear the government would be voted out and put up a fight.

If you tell me who your friends are I'll tell you about yourself. You are what you do. The verdict for China is unequivocal and unanimous: a bunch of thuggish goons befriending butchers and assasins, peddling trusting Westerners poisonous junk if we dare take an eye off them for a moment, brutalizing the populace whose souls and minds they long to own and sending those whose ownership they cannot extort to Laogai slave labor camps. To make junk.

Picking a fight with the CNN for telling reality isn't going to work unless the act is clean to start with.

Reflections on an expected outcome

Italy is Berlusconi's, again. I expected this result and therefore am not shocked, scandalized or appalled. A mix of gullibility, disillusionment with the left-wing government and blind loyalty brought the colorful billionaire a majority even without the centrist or ultra-fascist votes. Hats off.

This new Parliament, son of a ghastly election law, will however be a great improvement on the past. First and foremost the radical parties have been wiped out by the coherence of the major allies, who refused blackmail by the so-called kings of the 1%.

A usual deal would involve an ininfluential party demanding more "safe" seats from its greater counterpart in exchange for its tiny but potentially crucial contribution. In this election things were different. The radical left were left stranded by the moderate wing of progressives and catholics merging into the Democratic Party (PD), in coalition with former prosecutor Di Pietro's Italy of Values. The radical and unrepenting fascists were left out by the coerced convergence of populists and the (reformed) heirs of the fascist lineage into the PdL, in coalition with two autonomist parties. The centrists gambled most, and won.

As it stands now, Berlusconi should have a solid House majority of 340 (out of over 600), the Democrat coalition at 241 and the centrists alone at 34. At the Senate the right coalition will have 163 versus the PD's 141, plus two senators for the centrists who managed to overcome the 8% barrier somewhere.

Overall several parties caucused into the major ones, but a total count puts six parties in Parliament, plus sprinkles of regional parties caucusing with one of the majors. The hopeful radical left didn't break any of the barriers, slipping from a total of 10% in the last election to a meagre 3% this time, resulting in its parliamentary caucus which included pacifists, trotskyists and whatnot being wiped out. Fascist factions too have been wiped out, as most minor parties.

The outcome of this election offers food for thought.

The tremendous success of the Northern League (the Lega) is not just a protest vote against immigration or the political "caste". It is the only party openly advocating federalism and the North, cheated by the left in 2006 on the promise of a constitutional review, propelled the party to peaks of 25% in Lombardy. Federalism will be achieved this time and a referendum will be called again. If it fails on the votes of the numerous (and money-sucking) South I fear a rift will open. The irrelevant southern autonomists should push the federalist case HARD. Fiscal federalism is the only way to starve the Mafia of state money and make the regional administrations accountable for their waste.

Italians have abandoned communist delusions. Irresponsible trade unions, unintelligent pacifism, ambiguity on anti-globalization vandalism and ill-advised externations have cost the left dear. We have had enough.

Fascism is confined to the black dustbin of history, with all of the remaining parties scooping up less than 4%. Reformed nationalism is now part of the PdL, and it's a historic change.

The Catholic centre is irrelevant and I wish it well, since it could be a good counterbalance to Berlusconi's excesses in the next Parliament (my hopes of the latter retiring after this term in office would be extremely naive).

Parliament has become a little more governable, and the country too. This is not an opportunity to waste. It is also a wake-up call: old politics is on the way out and it is up to the survivors to bring Italy out of the factionalism that has dogged it since WW2 into a more Liberal vs Conservative arena.

Photo: AP

A disillusioned manifesto for a sleepy election

My country goes to the polls and I fail to feel any passion. Often elections are a time of euphoria and suspense, waiting for the people's verdict after months of campaigning, promises, criticisms, commitments, debates and other dressings on the ballot salad. This time round it almost feels like a long-overdue medical treatment. Two years of government by Romano Prodi, although courageous in many aspects and certainly efficient on certain deregulations and public debt, left me disillusioned about the entire reformist cause.

Italy is a nation with an overwhelmingly vital spirit, strifled by a morass system of power, favor, connection, corruption and self-serving lack of sense of State duty. From the worst kind of university professor to the worst kind of spoiled public employee, from politically appointed heads of hospital wards to political calculations in public management decisions, from monopolist professional corporations to out-of-touch trade unions Italy seems an inscrutable mosaic of small centers of power. A boot-shaped colony of small and big octopi maneuvering and sharing their citizen preys, playing with them and enjoying the untouchability granted by condescending higher spheres of power.

I love my country and wish to see it prosper. But the promises of the main parties fail to tackle the essential lack of liberty that destroys people's hopes. Promises to reduce bureaucracy are empty when they are confronted with public employment trade unions to whose demands most governments had to yield. Deregulation is not the granting of more taxi licenses in the city of Rome but the abolishment of fixed-quota taxi licensing altogether. Promises of job creation cannot be fulfilled when punitive business fees and union rules prevent enterprise, when professional orders rule their professions like a mafia and a law graduate can't set up shop without the blessing of the local monopolist order branch.

Italy needs to
-- redefine its national unity in a federal framework, promote fiscal responsibility among its 20 regions to stop the outflow of taxpayers' money from North to South,
-- create a stronger and freer Government with greater PM powers,
-- reform the election laws to introduce rigid first-past-the-post systems,
-- cut public expenditure by cutting red tape and administrative power centres,
-- abolish the 108 (and counting) Provinces as per referendum (conveniently shelved)
-- deregulate all professions leaving the orders as highly-respected certifying bodies,
-- eradicate trade union politicization,
-- reform higher education toward greater private financing and professorial accountability,
-- Privatize all publicly-owned corporations to eliminate the root cause of their politicization and inefficiency (government appointments)
-- Reform its pension system to aim for the radical downsizing of the national pension fund

Parties promise some or many of these. But these aims are impossible to achieve for a coalition alone. While Berlusconi and his tactics are in politics, no great consensus can be reached. The delusional and archaic leftists may well influence a left-wing majority. And certainly constitutional reform will be stalled due to lack of a 2/3 majority.

I feel close to no passion because I have almost ceased to hope for an awakening of people's sense of civic duty. Italy's problems are before their very eyes, yet the blame-game is still the most popular pastime in Rome. Lack of strong and sweeping commitments denotes complacency with the constituted status quo and power equilibrium.

I remain hopeful, but no party can expect my passionate endorsement until it decides to take a strong and consistent stance on greater freedom of choice, personal liberty, devolution and deregulation.

The ideas are there, maybe; the willpower definitely isn't. How can that excite and inspire a voter?

Italian business just got a little free-er

Italy's antitrust watchdog ruled today that it is not OK for local municipalities to impose compulsory closing days on commercial enterprises (i.e. shops). The ruling came after a complaint against the Rome municipality, which fined shopkeepers who opened up on Easter Monday.

This precedent will allow anyone owning a shop to be open anytime they wish, be it a working day or a Sunday, without the constraint of town bureaucrats gagging business supposedly in the interest of the workers, who need in the mind of these statist wonks to be shielded from the (by default) exploitative owner and greedy capitalist.

Reactions range from relief (consumers) to outright condemnation, with the Archbishop of Pompei even calling it an "attack against God", while others point the finger against consumerism, spout unionist drivel or attempt to sound academic about changing society and shops as social space. They are so full of bull!

The very essence of free enterprise in a capitalist society is being able to do business how one wishes to. A little bastion of socialism and nonsense has fallen in Italy. Sadly there's still way to go before I can call my home country a truly economically and socially free nation.

Conservation terrorists

Browsing through Canadian news sites one finds many stories relating to the unfortunate confrontation between sealers, the Coast Guard and the Farley Mowat, a vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Society. Allegedly a conservation group, these are reckless protesters that have nothing in common with true conservation groups such as Greenpeace.

Surprisingly perhaps, one doesn't find many data regarding the SSS itself in the news, the media of the land merely report the facts and state that the ship is now in St Pierre & Miquelon. But dig a little deeper and two quite unsettling reports come up.

The first is from the Associated press, which among other things reports:

"Paul Watson, president of the Sea Shepherd Society, denied that the Farley Mowat got too close to the hunt. He scoffed at the suggestion of charges, saying his vessel is Dutch-registered and doesn't have to submit to Canadian regulations. "

As if this was not enough, here's an even more indicting account of the SSS antics from the Harvard Crimson:

"But Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a radical environmentalist, freely admits to sinking at least 10 whaling boats in port, and attacking dozens more on the high seas in his lifelong quest to save whales, seals, and other precious creatures of the sea.

In 1997, he spent 60 days in a Dutch jail under accusation of ramming a Norwegian whaling vessel. In 2002, he was forced to flee Costa Rica after ramming an illegal shark fishing boat. And last month, a Japanese Coast Guard marksman allegedly shot him as he attacked an illegal whaling ship in the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary—the bullet lodged in his Kevlar vest."

Ignoring the apologist tone of the rest of the article, apparently oblivious to the immorality of threatening other people's safety for the sake of whatever cause, we find out that this self-declared cuteness-saving messiah is nothing but a megalomaniacal buccaneer.

Recent reports from the CBC state that the Farley Mowat has been chased away by St Pierre residents, evidently pissed off at being pointed at as shelterers and thus sponsors of eco-terrorism. Next time that ship enters Canada's waters I want it boarded, Watson sent behind bars and made an example for future extremist eco-fascists whose sole short-sighted purpose is to impose their warped hypocritical idealism on the whole world without making any attempt at winning over minds.

Violence and threats are the tools of the dictator. Greenpeace does an excellent job, underlining the most inhumane aspects of certain human activities, shocking people and getting public policymakers to take action. Watson's crude tactics only make me want to go buy some sealskin products.

One assumes the ends justify the means. That's when one goes into the wrong.

What kind of mother

can do this to the baby she bears in her womb?

"They are sweating and crying. They can't breathe. They have fast heart rates, vomiting and diarrhea. We have to actually give them morphine to make their life bearable," said Hay earlier this week.

Drug-addicted newborns suffer everything from drug withdrawal to kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks.

"We need to start doing the same for drug addicted-affected babies, particularly for cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth and heroin," said Hay.

To learn that not only drug-addicted babies are born and have to suffer the consequences of their brainless mothers' recklessness but that their numbers are so high is truly chilling. More chilling, though, are some of the comments to the story. Some people advocate forced sterilizations, some support the idea of criminal proceedings for damage to the unborn, others lay the blame on the insufficient amount of welfare. The same person states:

"It is about addictions and the conditions in society that promote the downslide of women into poverty and despair. Drug addicted women can often barely look after themselves, so the task of nurturing their unborn or newborn is overwhelming and incomprehensible to them. "

[...]

"But a single mom selling drugs can make more in a few days than she can all month on welfare. And the gap between selling and using is small. "

Surely more could have been done earlier to prevent them from beginning to do drugs in the first place. Surely they could have educated about pregnancy prevention, about responsibility to self and others. And surely they could have been educated about the unattractiveness of single motherhood as a choice (and it often isn't). By parents and family first and foremost. By the school system secondly.

However we cannot allow such well-intentioned permissivism to permeate policymaking. The link between poverty, single motherhood and drugs is not causal. You do drugs because you do drugs, period. And while everyone chooses their own poison there's nothing guaranteeing anyone the right to choose anyone else's. While single motherhood is challenging from a work-life balance and financial perspective, there is no situation whereby the only options are either welfare or selling drugs.

I shall not ramble on. But a few key concepts deserve mention:

A) Accepted pregnancy automatically carries responsibility for a being incapable of making autonomous decisions. And despite all the good-ism two months without a period and morning sickness might sound a few bells. Therefore there is a direct responsibility of the mother for consciously destroying her child's physical abilities and such responsibility (or abjuration of) must be accounted for. How, that's up to policymakers and society to decide.

B) The notion of drug use and abuse as a consequence of factors beyond people's control has to be eradicated from the public perception as an obvious, dangerous and destructive fallacy brought by permissivist traitors of common sense and perpetuated by weak-minded mediocrocrats. The needle doesn't find your vein and the spliff doesn't undergo spontaneous combustion. For God's sake do whatever you want with your body and your life, but blame it on no-one but yourself and don't let it maim others.

C) Although the social stigma might lead us to conclude that the problem is mainly affecting single mothers, nothing in the article says so. It could just as well have been future mommy and daddy happily smoking crack in their back garden with their junkie friends. It could have been future mommy and daddy chainsmoking spliffs. This isn't a problem of insufficient welfare. It could be a problem of insufficient treatment. It definitely is, though, a problem of lack of education, lack of character-building, lack of law enforcement and a spreading culture of everything being allowed without the need to face the consequences.

Life is tough. It's tougher when you're weak and ignorant. It's tougher on others when you are irresponsible. All those three notions should be carved in your mind since childhood. And for that last point you must pay.

Mugabe's April fools ... or not?

Zimbabwe has been a messy business for years. It just got messier.

The recent rumoured election results, as most know, give the butcher Mugabe losing to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Official results, however, are delayed. And I am not surprised.

Those who place high hopes in Mugabe taking the advice being showered upon him from all corners to quit, run and hide sound well-intentioned and noble but naive to me. A look at the assasin's record would freeze anyone's blood, and I for one am all too sure he wouldn't hesitate to murder half of his country beginning with the election commission if he needed to do so to stay in power.

I pray for Zimbabwe and I pray for Mugabe's criminal fury to have grown colder, or at least withered with age. I pray for him to go and for there to be as little blood as possible. But I prepare myself for the bitterness of waking up one morning and finding out Mugabe still steers Zimbabwe on its route to destruction.

I have no place in Italian politics

This is a pretty straightforward explanation for why Italian politics looks like a total muddle to me, and why I am frequently accused by fellow members of the Italian expat (and not) community of being a hypocrite because I criticize every candidate's position as inappropriate for the country but will end up voting anyway.

Yes I do vote, I do not waste my ballot. And No, I do not choose the least worst candidate, nor do I vote a party "to keep the other guy out".

The "Politometro" gives 15 statements which I can totally/partially agree/disagree with or be neutral. The statements span topics such as research freedom, abortion, in-vitro fertilization, trade unions, civil partnerships, school vouchers, nuclear energy, returning to Iraq, deregulation, minimum wage, flat tax, etc. If my fiscal conservative - social libertarian mix is anything to go by, no major PM candidate in Italy is the right choice for me.



So it should come as no surprise to anyone that my vote (in the foreign North America constituency) went not to a candidate representing the party closest to my views but to the person I judged most suitable (based on total lack of information or campaigning save by Berlusconi's party) to represent expat views in the national parliament: both the youngest and only foreign-born Italian in the candidate list. Incidentally, a woman too. I wish her success.